Good news, Apple iPhone XS and XS Max orders are preparing to ship
If you woke up at 12:00 a.m. PT/3:00 a.m. ET on Friday, Sept. 14 to pre-order a new iPhone from Apple, you likely have some good news coming your way.
Order statuses are beginning to switch to "Preparing to ship" if you have a launch day pre-order with a Sept. 21 delivery date. A charge on your form of payment and tracking number will likely be arriving soon.
More importantly in the long term, you can rest easy knowing that Apple is not going to push your shipping date back, or at least isn't planning to.
In years past, Apple has been a bit slow to send out tracking numbers, likely as the devices first ship from China and have to come over to US hubs for shipping. If you're eager to know where your iPhone is, UPS is usually the shipping provider, and tracking by reference with an order number or phone number might let you find it.
I haven't had luck finding my tracking info just yet, but you can bet I will be trying frequently over the next few days. If you're hoping to get an XS or XS Max on launch day still but didn't pre-order, your best bet is likely visiting a store early -- but launch day supplies can be limited. In fact, a carrier store AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, or Verizon) might be less busy and more up front about supply.
The waiting game is not nearly over, but at least you can wait for it to switch from "Preparing to ship" to "Shipped" now.
