So its been almost a month since Google put the Nexus 4 up for sale and I still dont have one. Not for lack of trying either. Ive had a tab open to the Play Store devices page on my work laptop for going on three weeks now, F5-ing it like some kind of degenerate every time I remember, which is more often than Id like to admit.
For anyone who missed it (unlikely if you read this blog, but still): Google announced the Nexus 4 back in November, made by LG, running stock Jelly Bean, no contract needed. $299 for the 8GB, $349 for the 16GB. Thats an insane price for an unlocked phone with that spec sheet (4.7 inch screen, quad-core Snapdragon, the works). T-Mobile sells it too if you want to do the contract thing, but the whole point of the Nexus line for me has always been not doing the contract thing.
The problem, obviously, is that nobody can actually buy one. Launch day the Play Store fell over within something like twenty minutes. I watched it happen in real time, added an 8GB to my cart around 9:05am my time, got through maybe two checkout screens, and then the site just started throwing errors at me. By 9:30 the listing said out of stock. I dont think Google expected the demand, or if they did, they badly underestimated how many units LG could actually produce, because this isnt a one-time thing. Theyve done at least two restocks since November 13th that I know of, and both times the story is identical: available for somewhere between twelve and forty minutes, then gone again.
Ive started keeping a note on my phone with exact restock timestamps other people have reported on forums, because apparently theres a pattern (mornings Pacific time seem to be the move) but even knowing the pattern hasnt gotten me anywhere yet. My working theory at this point is that theres a very small, very fast subset of the internet running scripts that refresh the page every couple seconds, and the rest of us mortals dont stand a chance clicking a mouse by hand.
Small tangent: I saw Tim Cook did an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek a few days ago saying Apple is going to spend something like a hundred million dollars next year moving some Mac assembly back to the US. Good for them I guess, though Ill believe it when I see a Mac with "assembled in USA" on the box instead of the usual China stamp. That kind of manufacturing shift takes years to actually show up on shelves, not months, so dont expect anything different by next Christmas.
Anyway. Back to my actual problem. Part of what makes this so annoying is that the Nexus 4 isnt even that exotic a phone anymore by mid-December standards — the Galaxy S3 has been out for months, the iPhone 5 launched back in September, and here I am unable to buy a phone that came out a full month ago because Google apparently ordered enough units for a mid-size city and not much else. My current phone, a Galaxy Nexus thats been dropped enough times that the screen has a crack creeping in from the top corner, is genuinely on its last legs. Every day I dont manage to snag a Nexus 4 is another day Im using a phone held together with a case and stubbornness.
I did read that some UK and German buyers have had slightly better luck than people in the US, which doesnt totally make sense to me given Google is usually pretty US-first with this stuff, but I havent independently verified that. Its just what people keep saying in the comments on every Android blog post about this.
If anyone reading this actually managed to get one, I want to know what time of day and what device you were refreshing on. Genuinely curious if theres a trick Im missing or if its just pure luck at this point. Either way, this is the last post youre getting out of me about a phone I dont own yet, promise. Next restock, Im setting an alarm and Im not touching snooze.