Hasta La Gadget!

Listen Microsoft, we know you’ve been wanting to stay absolutely mum on Kinect‘s price since its official E3 unveiling, even as GameStop and Walmart say $149.99. Included is the Kinect sensor itself, power supply cable, manual, and WiFi extension cable (huh?), and it shows up in our virtual shopping cart just fine. So, now that your own official online store is giving that price tag on a pre-order page, don’t ya think this guy deserves something akin to a legitimate press release for its MSRP?

[Thanks, Steven W.]

Kinect for Xbox 360 now listed for $150… at Microsoft’s own online store originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Jun 2010 23:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We haven’t verified exactly what’s going on here, but we’ve gotten several tips tonight from people who’ve received an iPhone 4 pre-order cancellation email from Apple saying that their order couldn’t be authorized. That sounds like an AT&T authorization problem to us, and given the the litany of problems that Apple and AT&T had all week dealing with the huge number of pre-orders, we can’t say we’re too surprised to hear that the chaos continues. Here’s the email:

Dear Customer,

We were unable to complete the authorization process for your iPhone order. As a result, we had to cancel your iPhone order. To complete the purchase of your iPhone, please visit an Apple Retail Store or an AT&T company-owned retail store.

We apologize for this inconvenience.

Sincerely,
Apple Online Store Team

Uh, yeah. We’re obviously looking into the situation, and we’ll let you know what we find out.

Update: We’re hearing that some people are getting cancellations from AT&T, as well — curiouser and curiouser.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Apple randomly canceling some iPhone pre-orders? Update: AT&T pre-orders too? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 19 Jun 2010 22:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We were amazed last night to see both Apple and AT&T sell out of iPhone 4 pre-order units despite the sustained ordering issues, and now we know why: Apple managed to move 600,000 iPhones in just a single day. Yes, that’s a lot — Apple says it’s the largest number of pre-orders it’s ever taken in one day, and AT&T says it’s ten times as many orders as it took for the iPhone 3GS. It’s not all sunshine and roses, though; Apple’s also apologizing to the large numbers of people who simply couldn’t get through yesterday, and AT&T’s suspended pre-orders entirely until the device is in stock. We’re guessing AT&T might also be putting the stopper on things while it gets those pesky security issues under control, but there’s a chance the carrier is just trying to deal with the insane order volume coming from Apple’s servers — it served up 13 million eligibility checks yesterday, shattering the previous record by three times. All in all, it looks like Apple has a hot item on its hands here — almost too hot to handle. Here’s Apple’s full statement:

Yesterday Apple and its carrier partners took pre-orders for more than 600,000 of Apple’s new iPhone 4. It was the largest number of pre-orders Apple has ever taken in a single day and was far higher than we anticipated, resulting in many order and approval system malfunctions. Many customers were turned away or abandoned the process in frustration. We apologize to everyone who encountered difficulties, and hope that they will try again or visit an Apple or carrier store once the iPhone 4 is in stock.

Update: Looks like that “ships by” date just slipped once more from July 2nd to July 14th. Yikes.

600,000 iPhone 4s pre-ordered, Apple apologizes for issues originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 12:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AT&T just kicked things up another notch, going from a launch day pre-order sellout for the iPhone 4 to… well, a total pre-order sellout. The carrier has announced this morning that it’s “suspending pre-ordering today in order to fulfill the orders we’ve already received,” saying only that it will resume the pre-order process when it can wrap its brain around the “additional inventory” it’ll have on hand. It’s hard to gauge where this lies on the truth / hype meter, but for what it’s worth, they’re saying that pre-orders outstripped the 3GS by a factor of ten, and eligibility checks were three times higher than the previous one-day record. Or… you know, maybe they just don’t want any more information falling into the wrong hands until they can figure things out. Follow the break for AT&T’s full statement.

Continue reading AT&T suspends iPhone 4 pre-orders altogether, says they were ten times 3GS’ numbers

AT&T suspends iPhone 4 pre-orders altogether, says they were ten times 3GS’ numbers originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 11:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In amongst the otherwise fun stampede that befell Apple and AT&T’s servers yesterday, some less humorous problems were also taking place. Numerous tipsters reported to Gizmodo during the day that they were being logged into other people‘s AT&T accounts while going in to try and sign up for an iPhone 4 upgrade. An insider source suggests that this was caused by a major fraud prevention overhaul of AT&T’s software last weekend, which was followed by “absolutely no testing” prior to the iPhone 4’s launch. Tsk tsk. The network itself has responded by saying it’s unable to replicate the issue and is looking into it. While it’s doing that, a bunch of people might be “looking into” your AT&T account details. Sleep tight now.

iPhone 4 pre-order mess takes a sinister turn with privacy breach originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 03:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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