Both AT&T and Apple have sent out statements Wednesday acknowledging yesterday’s iPhone 4 preorder meltdown. According to AT&T spokesperson Seth Bloom, preorder sales for the iPhone 4 were 10 times higher than the first day of preorders for the iPhone 3GS last summer. Apple has also publicly acknowledged that things did not go smoothly, apologizing to would-be customers who weren’t able to get an order in before the iPhone 4 sold out.

Apple said that it and its cell carriers worldwide took more than 600,000 preorders for the iPhone 4 yesterday. This was the “largest number of preorders Apple has ever taken in a single day and was far higher than we anticipated, resulting in many order and approval system malfunctions,” forcing many customers to abandon their attempts to complete an order. […]

600,000 preorders in a single day! I can’t say I would blame AT&T or Apple for system failures under that scenario. They planned for the loads they saw with the last model (and then some I’m sure), but were swept under by unexpectedly large demand to the point where Apple called it quits due to production availability concerns. You can only prepare for so much demand.