Best Buy To Have White iPhone 4s At Launch?

John Brownlee ()

Best Buy To Have White iPhone 4s At Launch?

It was a big disappointment to many when it became apparent that the white iPhone 4 would not be available at launch, forcing many to choose between waiting to upgrade their handset or getting a different color.

According to iClarified, though, there may be one big box retailer with some white iPhone 4s on hand come June 24th: Best Buy.

According to their intel, there are between 10 to 20 white iPhone 4s ordered by each Best Buy location. It’s unclear if Best Buy will actually get these white iPhone 4s, but it appears they at least expect to receive a limited number of them.

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Who knows? If you’ve got your heart set on a white iPhone 4, you might want to try your luck at Best Buy later this week.

6 comments »

About the author

John BrownleeJohn Brownlee is news editor here at Cult of Mac, and has also written about a lot of things for a lot of different places, including Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, AMC, Geek and the Consumerist. He lives in Cambridge with his charming inamorata and a tiny budgerigar punningly christened after Nabokov's most famous pervert. You can follow him here on Twitter.

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Posted in Apple, iPhone, News, Retail Stores, Top stories |

  • http://fungflex.org Kyle

    I think this is a really unlikely scenario if I had to guess. Considering AT&T circulated a memo on the 14th citing that no white iPhones would be available to order I think what happened was best buy didn’t update their data at an early enough time to prevent white iPhone preorders. After accepting handfuls of white iPhone preorders I think they simply placed a standing order of white iPhones to appease those customers.

    There is absolutely nothing to indicate that they will actual receive a single white iPhone from Apple.

    If they do it would indicate that Best Buy is the exclusive launch partner of the white iPhone which I suppose is possible as they are a longstanding partner with Apple in their retail space and are actually the exclusive launch partner of the white HTC EVO 4g. However I still find it very unlikely that Apple would launch a white iPhone that you could not buy from them but you could buy through Best Buy.

  • amy

    i worked at best buy for years. i’ve seen this screenshot a million times. just because something is “on order” does not mean you are receiving it. they have placed an order for a set amount and WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE, they will be shipped. they won’t have white iphone 4′s on launch day. the person who works at best buy knew this when they leaked the document.

  • http://ObamaPacman.com ObamaPacman

    Not happening. They just don’t realize there aren’t going to be any white iPhone 4 at launch.

  • stephy

    I was the first person in line at my local Best Buy on pre-order day I selcted a 32g white iPhone and saturday they called me to let me know that I can can change my order to a black iPhone 4 CANCEL my pre-order or WAIT until they arrive and the employee’s had no idea as to when they will be getting them.

  • stephy

    needless to say IF for some reasom they do have them and dont give me mine I will flip my lid.

  • Maxx

    It’s plausible. If we go by the 600,000 number how many of those were white pre-orders? None at AT&T/Apple so the number of white iPhones needed for launch is probably pretty low. Definitely under 50k I’d guess. Maybe more like 10-20k pre-orders. Depending what issues they had that delayed a wider launch it’s very possible. As for why Apple would let BB have an exclusive — I don’t think that was the plan. Seems like they forgot about their third tier partners in the US when delaying the white iPhone. That could have forced Apple to change their factory orders. We’ve been going under the assumption of a manufacturing problem but it could simply be a diversion of resources to meet the wider demand for the black version. Those tiny little Chinese hands can only assemble so many devices. If they saw unexpected demand for the white iPhone there could have been some shuffling in factory orders to get 50k in the states by the 24th.

    All this is, of course, justification for me to keep hope alive. I wish Apple would clarify the situation. I do want white but without knowing the ship date it’s hard to decide to wait or not. We’ve heard a couple weeks, 2 months or 6 months. I suspect there will be some major iPhone 4 shortages for the next 2-3 months at minimum. So that puts us white iPhone folks in a tough spot. Settle with black or potentially wait anywhere between 2 weeks or 6 months? It’s unfortunate that either Apple did not communicate to BB not to take orders, or BB simply ignored them, but for $300 and a 2 year contract I don’t think it’s unreasonable to at least get an official statement. It’s been my experience in the past that settling kind of sucks. I STILL regret not buying the sexy black MacBook 4 years ago. (ironic I know, shut up)