[Ed: Considering India won't get the iPhone 4 till well after muggle Christmas, it gives me great pleasure to publish this article. This is for all those who didn't get an iPhone 4 today.]

Remember when Steve Jobs said that Apple held back on international iPad releases because they wanted to be able to meet demand? Well, I had a pre-order for an iPhone 4 here in Japan, and Softbank, the mobile carrier here in Japan couldn’t cover the pre-order that I waited 3 hours in line for on June 15th. Why? Because they weren’t given enough. The whole iPhone 4 launch in Japan stinks.

First, a brief history of my experiences with Apple iDevice launch days. Japan never got the original iPhone. It did however get the 3G the same day as the US did. You’d think that would be awesome. Problem was, they didn’t take reservations, didn’t bother selling them in the official Apple stores in Japan, and didn’t ship enough units to cover launch day demand. 3GS comes around, and Japan doesn’t get it the first day. It was about two weeks later that we got it. This time, I was able to reserve one at Softbank, but lo and behold, not enough to cover reservations. To my surprise, the Apple Store here in Nagoya was selling them. I was able to walk in on launch day, no reservation, and took a 3GS home the day it came out in Japan. 10 months later, the iPad launches in Japan; nearly two months after the Wifi model shipped in the US. There was a huge debacle about whether Japanese iPads would be usable overseas with foreign SIM cards. It took a personal email from Steve Jobs to my Kernel Panic co-host Gabe Glick to clear up the situation. Problem was, by the time Apple Japan and Softbank had their stories straight, iPad pre-orders had closed, and both Gabe and I were left wondering if we’d be able to get iPads on day-one. Gabe waited in line overnight, and I rushed to the Apple Store after work. This was the incident where the Apple Store told me my alien registration card was going to run out in less than 90 days (even though I actually had 94 to go) and they turned me away. A trip to the Softbank shop downtown scored me the last iPad they had, and they told me that the Apple Store had screwed up and should’ve sold me an iPad. (And the girl who broke the bad news to me at the Apple Store in Nagoya shouldn’t have broken down in tears on the street and hugged me.) It took me nearly 4 hours of running back and forth all over Nagoya before I was able to get my iPad.

So now it’s time to decide how I’m going to go about getting an iPhone 4. I decided I’d rather deal with Softbank than Apple after the whole iPad thing. Softbank told me my alien registration wouldn’t be a problem since I was just upgrading hardware on an existing contract. I wait in line 3 hours in the rain to pre-order an iPhone 4, do all the paperwork, and left expecting a quick pickup come launch day. That didn’t happen. I called Softbank today at lunchtime since I hadn’t heard from them yet. They tell me that they don’t have enough units to cover all pre-orders that they took. It would seem that instead of covering all the pre-orders that they had taken, Softbank decided to take a hefty portion of their iPhone 4 stock and allocate it to Tokyo and Osaka third-party retailers that didn’t take pre-orders so that they could sell them to walk-in customers. So some guy in Tokyo is walking around with an iPhone 4 that could’ve been the one that I waited in the rain to pre-order so that Softbank could build up launch day lines that walk-ins could get into. This is insane. This isn’t going to help build any brand loyalty. Everyone in Japan already knows Softbank is a substandard mobile carrier, and screwing over die-hard Apple supporters who took the time to pre-order isn’t going to endear you to anyone.

The real rub here is that had I had faith in Apple and pre-ordered there, I’d probably have an iPhone 4 in my hands right now. (Although, from what I hear, holding it kills reception. Ouch.) I was so angry over the way that the Apple Store had treated me, and been so unwilling to help me resolve my problem that I didn’t want to shop there anymore than I had to. I went to the Apple Store after work, and had the pleasure of being told that they were cutting off walk-in sales just two customers ahead of me in line. After all the launch day nonsense that I’ve had to put up with between both Apple Japan and Softbank in the past few weeks, I couldn’t even muster up the rage it would take to get angry. I’ve just accepted that Apple Japan and Softbank are out to get me. And I do totally believe that the employees at the Apple Store Sakae in Nagoya remember my face and are purposefully being dicks to me now.

So where does this leave me? Wait. That’s all I can do. I still have a reservation with the Softbank flagship store here in Nagoya, but who knows when that’s gonna get fulfilled. The Apple Store doesn’t know anything about shipments and isn’t taking reservations for future shipments (or at least they aren’t for me, their least favorite foreign customer.) I wish I didn’t like Apple products as much as I do. I wish I didn’t have this uncontrollable need to buy everything on day one. I do though, and one more launch day like this for the next iPad or iPhone and I’m going to shove a sword into my own belly.