What are your thoughts. Would it have been faster to buy it at the Apple Store as opposed to online?

I would say it is about the same.

For me it was the first very bad experience with Apple since so many years as everything went wrong with my order.
I ordered on March 6 on the Apple online store and everything was fine till yesterday when the order status changed to "preparing for expedition". A few minutes later I got a mail telling me the credit card was refused. I immediately called the Visa card company and they told me there was an active and valid authorization for Apple since March 6 and everything was OK. Here in Europe, credit card authorizations are valid for 14 days (by law). An idiot at Apple decided to charge my Visa card a second time and this fails of course (due to the max amount in a month).
At the Online store support, they told me the authorization code was expired, which is false. So I had to cancel my online order.

Then I called the Brussels Apple Store and they told me it was on stock and available. So I did the trip to Brussels (120km) and arrived 10 minutes before the closing yesterday... no chance, I was told it was not possible to sell the Phantom 4 until today !!!
I go back to Brussels today and I have the only P4 that was on stock !!!

I walked in this morning and walked out with a shiny new DJI Phantom 4 after 5 minutes. If you live near an Apple store I recommend the store highly.

I heard that during one month is faster if you buy it in Apple

What he said^^^ 5 minutes of waiting as opposed to a couple more days.

More importantly, if it goes wrong, where are you more likely so get a satisfactory & timely repair/replacement?

I ordered mine from Apple online using the employee perk discount program (for non-Apple employees).  It arrived today as scheduled.

citivas Posted at 2016-3-16 02:31
I ordered mine from Apple online using the employee perk discount program (for non-Apple employees). ...

How much did you save?

rwjorgensen Posted at 2016-3-15 15:32
How much did you save?

$140 off, plus CA tax =~$100 or ~$1361 out the door. So really only saving $38 from ordering through DJI, but being able to pick up the same day is a bonus.

I ordered mine on 3/2, and was told recently it would ship on the 17th. Last night I cancelled the DJI order, and placed with Apple. Will be here Thursday. Also just checked and my local apple store has them in stock and available for pickup today. Pretty bad on DJI's part if you ask me.