We’re surprised it has taken this long. When the iPad mini initially became available for preorder on Friday morning, it took just twenty minutes for the white iPad mini + Wi-Fi to sell out, but the other models (especially the black) continued to be available for November 2nd delivery.
Apple doesn’t keep new products in stop indefinitely, though. As of this morning, the iPad mini doesn’t ship for another two weeks if you preorder it today. Still, it’s amazing it took this long for Apple to sell out of the much anticipated new product: either Apple made plenty of them ahead of time, or demand for the mini isn’t yet quite what it is for the iPhone or iPad.
After over a year of rumor and speculation, we’re less than a day away fr0m the iPad mini finally going up for preorder. Starting at 12:01AM Pacific Time, the iPad mini (Wi-Fi version only) will be available for preorder on Apple’s official site, with units delivering on November 2nd.
It’s always hard to tell with a new product, but if history is anything to go by — the iPhone 5 preorders sold out within hours, and stock is still short — the iPad mini is going to be crazy in-demand. If Apple starts preorders in the middle of the night, it’s because they’re anticipating a madhouse… such a madhouse that if they held it in the middle of the day, their servers would crash under the pressure.
Hence this guide. We’re going to walk you through the best ways to make absolutely sure you get your iPad mini preordered right at the stroke of midnight and in your hands next Friday when it officially launches in the minimum amount of time, so you can go right back to sleep.
It’s the middle of the night and we want to get back to bed, so we’ll make this quick: you can now pre-order the iPhone 5.
Well, it’s a little more confusing than that. As of writing, if you’re doing it through the web, the Apple Store is still down. However, you can complete your preorder quickly using the Apple Store app, and we were able to preorder our iPhone 5 directly from Verizon’s website a few minutes before the slated time with no trouble. Doubtlessly the Apple.com preorder page will go live soon.
Prepare to see something like this again after tomorrow’s iPhone 5 announcement.
The way Apple handles preorders depends on a couple of things: how much stock they have and how in-demand they think their latest gadget will be. For example, when the third-gen iPad debuted in March of this year, Apple started taking preorders almost immediately, but last year, when they debuted the iPhone 4S, they waited for three days until midnight PST on Friday before taking preorders.
It’s easy to see why. Even though there were enough third-gen iPads to go around, preordering the iPad was madness, and brought Apple’s server to its knees. By starting preorders in the middle of the night, Apple can mitigate server load, since most people won’t wake up in the middle of the night to get a new phone.
No surprise, then, that it’s looking increasingly likely that Apple will follow the same strategy this year, with the iPhone 5 not becoming available for preorder until Friday, September 14th at 12:00AM PST.
With shipping estimates starting to slip for the new iPad around the world since the tablet became available for pre-order on March 7th, it was only a matter of time before Apple sold out of its pre-order stock entirely. Shipping estimates for the U.K. and U.S. slipped to March 19th this past Friday.
Apple has confirmed in an official statement that it has now completely sold out of its pre-order iPad stock in less than 5 days.
When Steve Jobs first unveiled the new AppleTV on September 1st, he promised the new streaming-only AppleTV would ship in the next four weeks.
It looks like Apple’s going to make its deadline: we’re now hearing reports from our readers and from other sites that people who have preordered the new AppleTV are starting to have their credit cards charged.
Apple usually only starts pushing through credit charges on preorders when they are actually ready to ship out hardware, so it seems pretty obvious that the AppleTV is about to start dropping onto people’s porches fairly imminently.
Any other readers getting payment notification for their preorders… or, even better, shipping confirmation? Let us know in the comments.
![How To Preorder The iPad Mini At Midnight Tonight The Right Way [Guide]](http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Screen-Shot-2012-10-25-at-11.20.52-AM.jpg "Screen Shot 2012-10-25 at 11.20.52 AM")
