Apple Delaying Early Retina MacBook Pro Orders for Some Business Customers

MacRumors has received word today from several customers who have received emails from Apple indicating that their launch-day purchases of Retina MacBook Pro machines through Apple's enterprise sales channel have been delayed by up to a month. The customers had been quoted shipping estimates of 7-10 business days at the time of ordering, but today's emails from Apple cite new shipping dates of on or before July 25.

Dear Apple Customer,

Thank you for your recent order.

Purchase Order#: xxxxxxxxxx
Sales Order#: xxxxxxxxxx
Ship-to Zip Code: xxxxx

Due to an unexpected delay, we are unable to ship the following item(s) by the date that you were recently quoted:

Z0ML, MBP 15.4/CTO
will now ship on or before
Jul 25, 2012

Please note that product availability can change rapidly, and it is possible that your order may ship much sooner than we anticipate. You may even receive a shipment confirmation between the time we send this email and the time that you read it.

It is unclear exactly what is triggering the delays in shipping estimates, although all of those who contacted MacRumors about the delay indicated that they had customized the high-end model with 768 GB of solid-state storage but did not upgrade from the stock 2.6 GHz processor.

The Retina MacBook Pro has been in high demand since its introduction during the keynote of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference earlier this month, with shipping estimates slipping to 2-3 weeks within hours of launch before settling at 3-4 weeks a day later. Estimates have remained at that 3-4 week timeframe since that time.