Pre-Order Your New IPhone or Apple Watch Tonight With These Tips
If you’re planning on pre-ordering a new iPhone XS or Apple Watch Series 4, you’ll have a late night out today. All three devices – the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and Apple Watch Series 4 – will be eligible for pre-order at 12:01 pm PT. It’s California time – because in the Apple world, all roads lead to Cupertino.
You can also pre-order the device from the Big Four operators: Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint. And this is not one of those things that you want to put off until the morning (a normal morning for the start of the day you think about). At least if you want a new iPhone on launch day … or within weeks of launch day.
Remember the iPhone X? It took around 12:10 for delivery delays to start showing up. Wait half an hour or so and you will probably get a month’s delivery delay. If you’re a tech enthusiast, nothing can be more annoying than watching your friends play with new devices you don’t have.
For those who love midnight, here are some tips on how to block pre-order on iPhone tonight:
Make sure you can login without delay
Sign in to your Apple Store account now. Make sure your credentials and password are correct, and consider saving them in your browser (or a third-party password manager) to save you some time when you’re ready to pre-order your new iPhone.
If you’ve previously set up two-factor authentication for your account, you can tell the Apple Store sign-in page to “remember you” so you don’t have to enter a verification code from a linked device (such as your iPhone that needs to be replaced) to sign in. into the system.
(You can change this two-factor authentication setting here , but we recommend leaving it enabled for increased account security.)
Enter your billing information now
Why waste minutes fiddling with credit card information? Every second in the iPhone’s great land grab is precious. On the same account settings page , you will see the option to pre-enter billing and shipping information. Do this to make the checkout process even smoother and help you reduce shipping times for your pre-ordered device. (Or, just use Apple Pay to buy new things that you should already have installed on your existing Apple device.)
If you’re using the Apple Store app to pre-order a new device – and you should, which I’ll cover a bit – make sure you’ve turned on Touch ID or Face ID for purchases, which should help you complete your transaction much faster. instead of typing your Apple ID password (especially if you keep typing awkwardly out of anxiety or fatigue). You will find this setting by clicking on the small face icon in the upper right corner of the app to access the account screen, scroll down and tap on the Settings option and search for “Touch ID” or “Face ID”. on the next screen.
Also make sure to check the Remember Me box if you want to take advantage of your carrier’s upgrade options – if you are blocked by any funding plan . This saves you the trouble of entering any carrier-specific information (like zip code for billing for wireless number, etc.) during the update process in the early morning hours.
Get pre-approval
If you’ve previously signed up for Apple’s iPhone Upgrade Program, be sure to get pre-approved if you want to get your new iPhone tonight. You have until 4:00 pm PT (September 13th) to do this!
Don’t forget about apps
You’ll want to open tabs for different stores – Apple, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile – in your web browser, but while you frantically hit the Refresh button to make pre-orders available, don’t forget about each carrier’s app. While mobile carrier apps probably only work for subscribers (at least based on my quick test of Verizon and AT&T apps), you can at least download your carrier’s app to get an extra resource for iPhone pre-orders. You might even be in luck if the carrier’s app allows pre-orders before Apple does.
However, your best option is to stick with the Apple Store app (if you’ve already purchased the Apple ecosystem). Last year, due to the iPhone X pre-order frenzy, the Apple Store app actually had pre-order inventory in front of Apple’s website. Plus, the transaction process is much faster on your iPhone or iPad than on Apple’s website.
If you’re using Android, ask a friend if you can borrow his iPhone or iPad for the evening, or use your carrier’s app as a backup. Don’t just rely on websites: after 12:01 pm, start updating those apps as well.
Set up your iPhone or Apple Watch ahead of time
Don’t waste time researching configurations and colors tonight. You can view options, choose carrier, choose color and storage, and add your iPhone to your favorites on the Apple Store website or Apple Store app. Just look for the heart icon on the last web page where Apple asks if you want to add AppleCare + coverage (or the heart icon in the top right corner of the Apple Store app).
Then, when the pre-orders are up and running, you can click the bag icon and select Favorites on the Apple website, or click the profile icon in the top-right corner of the Apple Store app to open the pre-configured device and beat the number of other pre-order shoppers. order.
(If you are trading your old iPhone through Apple’s GiveBack program, you will have to enter this information manually – you won’t be able to save it – so don’t forget!)
Set the right alarm
I don’t think you’ll be oversleeping or anything if you’re actually going to pre-order the iPhone tonight. But it may happen that you set your alarm for 11:45 pm PST. It works, you remember that you need to pre-order in the next 15 minutes, and you do something else to fill the time. Then, when it is 12:11 and you already expect a three-week delay in delivery, you will be unhappy.
I don’t know what time is best for you, but give yourself enough buffer so you can load all of your websites and apps, take a breather and get ready to find a new device. It’s probably not a full hour earlier, but a minute earlier, maybe a little less.
Start scouting early
By the way, you can also set up a pre-order iPhone search on Twitter and Reddit and start updating them – and the pages of the various carriers, as well as any apps you use – in about half an hour (or more). … If your carrier is stupid and launching pre-orders early , as was the case with the iPhone X last year, you need to make sure you take advantage of their bug before the masses find out. Or, if they put you in the pre-order queue, hopefully you get ahead of everyone who kindly waited until 12:01 pm to intervene.