Oops! Some French customers received their iPad minis 3 days early

The iPad mini will only be available starting November 2. Unless you’re a lucky Apple fan in France.

According to a number of reports and tweets out of France, at least one retailer, Darty and Auchan has had a logistical SNAFU and released some iPad Minis ahead of schedule … meaning that some Apple fans received the latest iDevice three days earlier than everyone else.

Here’s the tweet:

Les messages laissés par Auchan sur le répondeur de @Toximityx pour lui demander de rendre son iPad mini sont hallucinants. #tweetprecedent

— Benjamin Ferran (@benjaminferran) October 31, 2012

My high school French is a little rusty, but my best guess is that Ferran is saying: “Auchan [the retailer] has sold an iPad mini before the release date and called its clients asking them to return them. Whatever …”

Above: iPad mini release countries

Image Credit: http://maheinfo.blogspot.com/2012/10/Apple-iPad-mini-release-date-Countries.html

(I was feeling a bit bad about my decaying skills in la belle langue, but apparently Google’s high school French is even rustier, giving me this translation: “Auchan sells a mini iPad before the release date and recalls his client to the surrender. Anything …”)

French Mac blog Macg.co confirmed the story (Google Translate link).

Apple is attempting something very, very ambitious with the iPad mini: releasing it at huge scale in 34 countries simultaneously. That’s the most countries I can remember a brand-new Apple product being released in at once, ever.

Realistically, when you’re trying to coordinate that kind of scale, some mishaps are going to occur.

But the upshot is: If you wanted an iPad mini early, you should have been in Paris.

photo credit: Werner Kunz via photopin cc

Thanks for the tip: Eric Dupin