It has been a rough five days since Apple started accepting pre-orders for the iPhone 4. Those who attempted to pre-order the handset on the first day were greeted with a multitude of errors. Neowin reported on these problems a few days ago, and matters haven"t improved much with recent reports that Apple and AT&T are randomly canceling pre-orders. For those who couldn"t successfully pre-order, Apple now pinpoints July 14th as the earliest ship date going forward.
Now on to the good news, for those that did manage to get a pre-order in for the initial batch of 600,000, shipping has commenced. Engadget and MacRumors report that many have begun to receive email confirmations for iPhone 4 shipments. MacRumors also points out that some confirmation emails state the package will be delivered by June 23rd. While delivery services have been known to inadvertently deliver Apple products a day ahead of schedule, this is likely a simple database error.
In the past it has been possible to walk into an Apple store days after the release of a new handset and stock would be available, but if the these reports are anything to go by, that may not be the case this time around.