• Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, June 16, 2010 10:37 AM

The good news is that demand for pre-orders of the iPhone 4 is so great that AT&T and Apple are having trouble keeping up. That's the bad news, too, of course -- coupled with an apparent second breach of customer security on AT&T's Web site in a week. Sites for both companies had difficulty processing orders and AT&T's, in certain instances, appeared to reveal other people's personal information, Niraj Sheth and Roger Cheng report.

The new device officially goes on sale June 24, but the companies began taking pre-orders yesterday. Even as they did, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson was talking up a forthcoming slate of new phones powered by Google's Android mobile operating system. "We have a lineup that we haven't disclosed," he told analysts in New York. "There will be other devices that come along, and we'll do just fine."

That feeds into rampant, if unconfirmed, rumors that AT&T's exclusive contract with Apple will expire soon and other carriers -- T-Mobile and or Verizon, in particular -- will begin to also carry iPhones. But Stephenson pointed out to a Journal reporter that 70% of AT&T's customers are tied up in family plans, making it harder for them to depart when competing iPhones hit the market.

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