31 Jan 2004: I rang Apple to ask what had happened to my order due to ship 28 January. Bottom line was, they didn’t know and would contact ‘logistics’ to find out.

1 Feb 2004: I rang Apple again. This time the news was that stock was due to be received on 7 February. ‘It might ship before’. I pointed out that others who had ordered the same configuration of Mac mini after me, with expected shipping dates late February had already received theirs.

4 Feb 2004: I received an e-mail from from Apple informing me that my DVI-Video adapter which was part of my Mac mini order was delayed until 7 March. I could ring them within 48 hours to ask them to ship what they had in stock, or delay the entire order until the adapter was ready. Naturally I rang them to say ‘please despatch what you have now’.

7 Feb 2004: No notice of shipping. Rang Apple. ‘Payment is approved. Would you like the items to be shipped?’. Now, what’s all this about? What was the point of telling someone to ship what they had only to find out three days later that nothing had been shipped? This ‘payment is approved’ is also nonsense since payment is always approved when the order is submitted, the credit card company simply holds the funds against that order so it cannot be used elsewhere.

8 Feb 2004: Finally received shipment notice.