Apple and AT&T seem to have their signals crossed. Multiple MacDailyNews readers and users in Apple Discussions (Apple.com / Support / Discussions / iPhone / Phone) are reporting their iPhones are being turned into iBricks while they wait for AT&T activation.
Most of those facing this issue understand that the large amount of orders may create a process that takes some time. The time it takes is not really the issue here, the issue is that Apple’s iPhone Users’ Guide states:
See the problem? “In the meantime, you can make calls and use iPhone’s other features.”
After much time on the phone with both AT&T and Apple Support, this is what we believe is the issue:
• AT&T is completely swamped right now due to so many people trying to activate at the same time
• Apple is completely swamped right now due to a mistake (or very poorly-worded passage) in their iPhone User’s Guide
iPhone owners are understandably expecting that while they wait for AT&T to activate their phones that “in the meantime” they’ll be able to “make calls and use iPhone’s other features.”
This, we have been assured by Apple, is incorrect. iPhones will not allow for anything other than an emergency call (911) to be made and for a pretty picture of planet Earth with text imploring users to “Activate iPhone” to be displayed.
So, “in the meantime,” iPhone users waiting for AT&T activation cannot make calls (other than calling “911”) and cannot use iPhone’s other features. In other words, in an effort to be perfectly clear: AT&T activation is required before iPhone users can “make calls and use iPhone’s other features.”
We think Apple meant their Guide to say that while waiting for your old carrier (for example, Verizon) to transfer the necessary info to AT&T, users could expect to “make calls and use iPhone’s other features.” That wait for info from the old carrier only affects incoming calls to your iPhone – everything else (iPod, Safari, etc.) will work, if AT&T has gotten around to activating your iPhone.
We also believe that Apple expected AT&T to handle iPhone activation much more expeditiously, but that obviously hasn’t happened for some number of unhappy iBrick owners.
MacDailyNews Take: Bottom line: AT&T seems to have blown iPhone activation, at least for some, and Apple’s online iPhone User’s Guide is incorrectly guiding iPhone users to expect something that will not happen. Not good. And it’s especially disappointing for those who waited hours, even days, to plunk down $500-$600 for the device and sign up for at least a $60/month service from AT&T. AT&T needs to do whatever they can to speed things up and Apple should immediately get that Guide offline and rewrite that passage in the iPhone User’s Guide to let users know what to really expect.
[UPDATE: 12:48am EDT: Several readers report activation in the last 30-minutes or so! Their “iBricks” have magically transformed into iPhones, and that’s a very good thing!]
I’m at 2 1/2 hours and counting.
Always someone ready to complain…
I refuse to believe that they did not think they would be swamped.
This is bad planning, and bad publicity.
Hope they fix this VERY soon.
AT&T — the weakest link in the iPhone chain
although I suspect any other wireless telecom would be just as inept, some even worse
AT&T — the weakest link in the iPhone chain
although I suspect any other wireless telecom would be just as inept, some even worse
AT&T — the weakest link in the iPhone chain
although I suspect any other wireless telecom would be just as inept, some even worse
AT&T — the weakest link in the iPhone chain
although I suspect any other wireless telecom would be just as inept, some even worse
Eh, relax guys. At least you got one. I have to wait 2-4 weeks……..
worked perfectly for me.. migrated from sprint, the entire process took like 1/2 hour, *including* moving all emails, movies, music, etc.
So get a new phone number, BFD.
this is only a delay, and it’s shorter than the message claims.
most people that received that message have an active iPhone by now.
i think it’s not AT&T or Apple’s fault, but other carriers that are not fully prepared.
Man, this sux. Two staffers at MacWorld are having issues too. One seems to have a DOA iPhone, and the other is getting an activation error, possibly related to changing his business plan to an individual plan last week.
Then again, all this is not that surprising. Anyone expecting AT&T’s activation service to not be slammed is probably being naive. Still, one would thing AT&T would have planned better.
Yes it’s true – I got the 2nd to last iPhone in my local store today and my excitement has turned to excrement. I was already an AT&T (Cingular) customer and did not have to change or transfer numbers. 2 and a half hours later, I’m still waiting for activation to complete. I keep playing with the thing hoping it will arise from the dead soon.
Guys relax…. we al know you can’t wait to have your first iPhone orgazm…. but the is the real word and when 100,000 people try to activate their iPhone at the same time….
…now take a deep breath and you’ll have your new toy very soon working…
It’s understandable that the number transfer process is causing problems. Why would the competing carriers go through extra efforts to expedite helping AT&T gain their customers?
It is interesting that there are so many customers switching carriers. This may be an ongoing problem for Apple and AT&T, if a high percentage of customers are trying to transfer their phone number.
I’m typing this from my iPhone but my friend has had his activating for about 3 hours now. Needless to say he is very disappointed.
Took 2 1/2 hours but it finally activated. Syncing up now.
@David
I wasn’t complaining just putting a time on it. I know these things take awhile sometimes.
no problems here – west coast, existing AT&T account. And I’m sending this on my iPhone. I’m wishing all y’all satisfaction!
Mine was a brick but it just went through!!!! WOOOHOOO!!! Hopefully things have been fixed
Gawd, what a bunch of babies. Dry your tears, change your diapers, grow up, and wait a day or two. Think about how you’ll be bragging next week about how long you waited in line and how long it took you to activate.
Yeah I am pissed. AT&T has completely screwed this up for me. I have somehow been classified as a corporate customer in their system so I can’t switch my phone over. AT&T is swamped right now, don’t even try calling.
I’m in Chicagoland … no problems here. Best of luck to everyone.
Bandwidth can only hold so much at the same time…I had problems downloading the latest iPod software after getting an iPod on Christmas Day. Later, everything was super speedy.
man, what the hell is all this talk about ACTIVATION PROBLEMS?!!!!
I literally came home, unpacked my iPhone..sat @ my Mac, fired up iTunes and within 5 minutes! I was playing!!!!!!!
This sounds like the work of trolls itching to find fault on the phone..
It took me no more than 5 mins to activate my phone and another 5 mins to synce the stuff i wanted on it.
I had no problems at all!!
“I’m typing this from my iPhone but my friend has had his activating for about 3 hours now. Needless to say he is very disappointed.”
I’d be very disappointed as well. It must be a serious energy drain, just sucks all of that juicy hype right out of your system. It’s a terrible way to begin a relationship.
People should get that box home, open it up, sync it up, activate it up and in minutes stare amazed at the power they hold before them.
That’s how I’d want my iPhone experience to be. At the very least let me load all my shit on there and play some movies/music, get to know the interface more intimately while I’m waiting.
Thanks alot for putting iBrick in the title…this article will be in the news section of Bloomberg on Monday morning…the naysayers will see to it.
Martin: “this is only a delay, and it’s shorter than the message claims.
most people that received that message have an active iPhone by now.
i think it’s not AT&T or Apple’s fault, but other carriers that are not fully prepared.”
Not to be an ass, but how do you know this inside info? Do you work at Apple or AT&T, or was that just your speculation?
Less than 2 minutes here…
ah, an unlocked iphone with a sim tray.. pop the sim card in.. good to go.
Moo-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!
Total respect for MDN for this report.
I was tearing my hair out – I waited 10 hours for an iPhone and it’s still not working after 4 hours of trying to activate!
Couldn’t get a straight answer from anyone – except MDN.
Perhaps Apple and AT&T should have staggered the released by time zone, region or even state. For example, California on day one, the rest of the West Coast a few days later, the Mid-West, a day after that, and so on.
I hope they get this figured out before the man on ebay who bid $99,999,999.00 for an iPhone gets his. I just tried to get the link for you all but it looks like ebay just removed it. I lie to you not, it was one dollar under $100M!
i had no problems activating two phones and i am currently typing this on my iPhone
i think it’s not AT&T or Apple’s fault, but other carriers that are not fully prepared.
…or perhaps not fully interested in helping with Apple’s image.
“You wanna switch your current number to your new iPhone? Suuuure we can help. Give us a week. Maybe two. Pity your iPhone will be useless until then…”.
Well, you know, you can wait an extra few weeks until all of the dust settles. Instant gratification = masturbation.
See what happens when you don’t control the whole widget?
Activation was a few minutes here (about 4 to be exact). Smooth as silk. I think you are all confusing the “porting” of numbers with activation. Porting is at the whim of the other provider and has NOTHING to do with Apple or AT&T. Any smart cell phone user would know this very basic information.
I’ve been waiting for activation for over three and a half hours now. . . no number transfer etc,.
Front page news in local paper in Sturgis, SD. No iPhone for the people of South Dakota because AT&T/cingular refuse to do buisness in this state
Phone calls get routed through another carrier, but no internet or other goodies.
Just be glad you not here.
http://www.sdmoderate.com/2007/06/27/iphone-will-just-be-a-rumor-here/
What they don’t make completely clear is that activation is required to do anything. Additionally, you may have to wait to receive calls IF you are transferring a phone number.
I read it this way the first time, but obviously others have not.
– gws
My iPhone activated in about 30 seconds.
I don’t know why people are surprised. Name any other phone company that has had to add up to an estimated 400,000 phone accounts in one day. This won’t be an issue by tomorrow.
I was very excited about my new iphone…until I tried to set up with Itunes. This is when I discovered that there was no sim card or sim card tray in the phone. The guy at apple said this was the first call he got on this issue. Anyone else come home with an empty sim slot. I took the whole box apart including the bottom and foam top. What a letdown.
“Not to be an ass, but how do you know this inside info? Do you work at Apple or AT&T, or was that just your speculation?”
I’m not sure what the person you directed that question to was thinking, but it’s the same idea that came to mind for me.
Number portability is a two way transition. The new carrier cannot activate your new account with an old phone number until your current carrier releases that number from their system.
Now, who’s more likely to take it slow in this situation, AT&T, who not only gains a new customer but is stealing one from a competitor, or the competitor who is about to lose that customer to AT&T?
Conventional wisdom says that it’s your current carrier who will drag their feet releasing your phone number to AT&T. If the bastards could, they’d call you at home, ask why you’re leaving and try to bribe you to stay with a cheaper plan or some other discount.
woooooohoooooooooooooooo.
Activated in 5 mins.
I wonder how widespread it is?
This is from my iphone. It activated in like 15 minutes.
@ iPhone woohoo
so …. how much are you gonna ask for your 2nd iPhone on ebay ?
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It’s a small delay because of Mass traffic. Mark my words…tomorrow it will work – when they catch up. And after that it will continue to work with the several thousand a day they sell, not several hundred thousand like today.
BTW – It’s AT&T and not Apple or any other carrier. I am transferring a number but that doesn’t effect the basic activation – which mine has been delayed for 2 hours so far…no email. I’m sure I’ll have it in the morning, I’m not worried.
I was just saying to friends today, I hope the “background” of AT&T and Apple is ready for this flood. From 6:30 to 8:30 the servers, lines, whatever takes care of it all is going to be overwhelmed. I had a gut feeling it was going to be a tough first 6 hours to a day.
Imagine the number of attempts all in one time frame.
@Newmanstein. I agree. MDN: Cut the iBrick crap. I don’t need my stock to fall. ; )
Any new, publicly untested complex product in demand to this massive degree, (and activating all at the same time) is going to hit bumps here and there. It will iron out quickly. Cut ’em a break.
I had no issues with iPhone activation or setup. Text message announcing that it could receive calls came after about 2 hours, but all other features were fully functional in the mean time. It never occurred to me that they might not be!
This note entered on the iPhone.
Perhaps Apple and AT&T should have staggered the released by time zone, region or even state.
The gotta-have-it crowd would’ve just migrated to the first-release stores. Wonder how many travelled to EDT stores because of this.
What Apple and AT&T should’ve done was better prepare for the entire inventory of iPhones being activated over a few short hours. If the network couldn’t handle the demand then the rate of sales should’ve been limited.
Well, at least you don’t have to wait in the store for all this……
less than two minutes for mine
MDN,
Some “fan boys” you guys turned out to be!
Just kidding, I am sitting here with an iBrick myself and getting nowhere with Rajiv on AT&T phone support -then I read your article and hung up.
I can’t wait to use my iPhone, I’m sure I’ll love it!
But, Apple really needs to fix that User’s Guide – it reads totally wrong and that’s why those affected are so frustrated!
I had the same issue. I called at t. They had np clue.I read the support passage on apple support web site .as specified there , everything except phone calls are working on my iphone.I am on wifi. I typed this message on iphone . I love this key board . It is great . I wish they added the full stop / the dot in the main key bosrd layout
Cheers
Just talked to AT&T. They are now quoting a 3-4 hour activation time, max. I’m at 3 1/2 hours so hopefully I will be up and running soon.
Did anyone predict this in advance? It does make sense, but I don’t recall anyone here or elsewhere calling it, even naysayers.
I have been waiting 6 hours and no email or activation. i ejected the iphone from the computer and it gave me the imei and iccid #s…does anyone know what these mean? called them 3 times. this is ridiculous.
For all you completely deluded Apple fanboys out there, there is DEFINITELY a problem with ACTIVATION. My issue has absolutely nothing to do with number porting. I bought a phone at the AT&T store, did the credit pre-approval, and the “system” failed to give my friendly sales-drone the required approval code. “No problem,” he says, “you won’t need it to activate your phone.” Now it’s 2.5 hours later, and my iPhone still fails to activate, complaining that I need pre-approval (which I have). I have talked with the manager of the store and with 3 different ppl at the Death Star (Corporate Support). No on can help me… and I am getting a little pissed.
Starting the show at 6pm is the worst idea Apple ever had, since now I will have to wait until tomorrow to so if not when I can activate my iBrick.
Went thru activation via iTunes — finished at 9:52 pm EDT. Got a “we need more time to complete, you’ll get an email when it’s done” message. A minute or so later, I got the email — says it’s gonna be a full 24 HOURS until the number transfer is completed.
So until 9:52 pm tomorrow night…all I can do is look at the earth photo (and call 911). I’m sure it’s Alltel dragging their feet on the number transfer as mentioned above — but it’s be nice if Apple and ATT had anticipated this a little better. I’d at least like to check out the other features while I’m waiting to make calls.
Yeah, I know — waa waa waa. But it still bites.
See what happens when you don’t control the whole widget?
IOW, Apple is supposed to build and run their own wireless network??
I’d love to see the price tag on that.
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Articles popping up already–
I was so excited flying from my home in Halifax to New York this morning—I was getting an iPhone! But three hours after getting my hands on one, I am ready to drop the thing from the 44th floor of the New York Hilton—and I probably would if I was sure it would hit someone from AT&T.
http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/2007/06/iphone_act/index.php
But we should report on the real story here… The iPhone is completely and unbelievably awesome.
THis sucks!
RTFA:
That wait for info from the old carrier only affects incoming calls to your iPhone – everything else (iPod, Safari, etc.) will work, if AT&T has gotten around to activating your iPhone.
MDN has nailed this issue. Thanks!
No problem with mine. Bought at 9pm central time. Up and running in 5 minutes when at home at 10pm. Current AT&T customer and kept #
Glad my daughter isn’t doing Cingular customer service this year. She’d be getting grief from enraged Apple fanatics right now…
MacDailyNews,
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
I was so frustrated with AT&T support (clueless) and Apple support (they seem shocked) that I was about to throw this $600 paperweight against the wall!
I’m so happy you explained what’s going on, so I can sleep tonight!
Thank you!
During activation did anyones phone show signal strength?
First I was told that my credit check failed and I needed to come into an AT&T store to make “arrangements” in order to get a monthly billing plan. This meant pay a security deposit. This surprised and shocked me since I thought I had excellent credit. Hence, I quickly pulled a free credit report and felt better when I saw my Experian credit score was 765. Maybe there was something wrong with my Equifax or Transunion report? In order to be sure, I paid $24.95 to get the other two reports instantly and saw my credit score was 765 and 773 respectively with these agencies. I decided to try activating my new iPhone once again and this time I received the dreaded, “Your Activation is taking longer than usual…”. I also received an e-mail claiming that my phone number would be moved from Verizon to AT&T in 24 hours…so I believe my credit problem has somehow been resolved. (I just wish I hadn’t spent an additional $24.95 to prove to myself that I had excellent credit) Now if I could just get the phone to work as advertised I’d be happy.
This is a DISASTER for Apple!
Mine activated in about 3 minutes.
mine worked within about five minutes…sorry for you guys with problems…i’m leaving this message with it!! iPhone freaking rocks!
trying to activate my phone, and it shows no signal strength. the faq says i can use the ipod features, but of course it wont work untill activated…. great first impression att! they knew they would be busy, no excuses here
This is what Apple gets for locking the phone down so you had to activate it. God forbid they had at least made the wifi piece of the phone usable. Then this wouldn’t be an issue…
att is trash
Apple has the best customer service.
AT&T has the WORST.
We waited at an AT&T store in SF for hours.
The dumbass manager repeatedly told u we would all get one and he wouldn’t make anyone waste their time in line needlessly.
After 3 hours, he changed his story and we didn’t get one.
I asked him if he knew about the Apple store and if they had any. His reply was “I don’t know dude.”
I drove to the SF flagship Apple store. I was in and out in 5 minutes with my new 8 gig phone.
Now I can’t activate it.
See where the weak link is?
Love you Apple!
Hate you At&T
It’s like having your mom marry a jerk.
Love you mom – hate you new dad!
OMG STFU you pansy-ass whining greedy bastards!!!!
I can’t even afford to buy a damn iPhone and you spoiled little cry babbies are sniveling about waiting for your over-hyped yuppie status symbol to activate. As if overnight Apple had made everything in the world perfect and you’ve been duped back into the real one. Where not everything works exactly as you’d like.
You stupid shits don’t even deserve to have an iPhone. Return it immediately if you’re so god-damn pissed off.
So, I’m just waiting for the the YouTube video of the first guy to take a sledgehammer to his iPhone. There’s silly enough folks out there who will try to be the first at this, or just get angry enough to bash the shit out of it.
I’m activating 2 iPhones on a family plan – on with a new number and 1 with a transfer from Verizon. The one with the new number activated no problem, the other – still waiting.
Be calm people!
Unethical title there guys. Brick implies permanency and this is obviously temporary.
But this is what you get when you work with AT&T/Cingular. Crappiest customer service in the world. I can’t say I’m the least bit surprised.
Hopefully Apple learned something from this experience and will remove the need to activate from the next models of Iphones…
@ ../.
i just noticed that most people that had a delay are verizon users.
many iPhone buyers got a message telling them that their phone would be activated saturday evening, but the phone was activated 2 hours later.
i got my info from 100’s and 100’s of posts on various forums, including here.
obviously ATT and Apple are not the only parties involved here.
but, this article is not about that delay anyway, but about the impossibility to do anything with the phone while waiting, and that can only be ATT or/and Apple’s fault.
I waited 2 hours inline at AT&T at Downtown Crossing in Boston, where only 50 people got iPhones, that’s right 50 people served in 2 hours, the person inline ahead of me got the last phone. I then trekked across Boston to Cambridgeside and got an iPhone there in less than 10 minutes. I have now been waiting over 3 hours to activate my phone, with still no activation. My iBrick is the cornerstone of bordem right now. The day I most anticipated to be funfilled has been one of the most disappointing. I don’t know if I should hate AT&T more or Verizon, or maybe even Apple for not coming down on AT&T more.
2 words: class action
Two more: what ever.
9:20 – “Your activation requires additional time to complete”
This is just like installing CS3!!!
;P
-c
MW: ‘attack’
i had same issue and then i reconnected the iphone to itunes, which caused another automatic attemt to activate, which in my surprise did immediately..
Ya posting from my iPhone right now. The store took forever to process us
my dads is an ibrck atm due to it being on a corporate acct
Man, someone needs to pass out some weed. You’ve gone your whole life without this phone, and suddenly it’s do or die. This is just the sort of reason I didn’t buy on the very first day. As it turns out, they’re going to make more, and I won’t have to camp out to get one.
So AT&T is swamped. Wow, what a surprise. Barely just 6 hours after the tech device of the decade is sold to huge numbers of people, and they’re overloaded. Doesn’t that beat all?
If you really feel that it’s an iBrick, then maybe you fellas ought to return your iPhone tomorrow.
And, uh, like the other guy said, it was really a smooth move to put “iBrick” in the title of this thread. Those that want to dampen iPhone sales (and they are legion) are currently scouring the internet for anything they can seize on. And now they have it. Terrific play!
I activated my iPhone as soon as I got home which was about 7:30 EST. Not only that but I switched carriers from TMobile to AT&T and ported my number at the same time. No problem and no delay. Number was completly ported within an hour. Could not be happier. And yes, this is being typed on my iPhone!!!!
got mine and waiting for 15 minutes – i have all night -\The manual time estimates are for regular days not for today.
You thankless asses. Please sell your Macs and return your iPhones and switch back to Windows ASAP. With friends like this who needs you? Please move to Darfur.
MacWorld can also blow it out their asses. Bunch of back-stabbing pricks.
MDN, you irresponsible cu&ts;, you’re headline is iBrick???? I wish I could find you and rip your balls off. What are you trying to do? Are you 14yrs old?
I simply can’t believe that some of you are saying you’d like to throw your iPhone out the window now. And yet you were so eager for one you had to get it on the first day. I can’t imagine what some of you would do if you came across a real problem in your life.
Friggin losers! Spoiled shitwits!
9:32 – Done!!! Sync in progress
-c
If anyone really wants to throw their iPhone out the window, please throw it in my direction, as I can’t afford one and am baffled by the petulance on display here.
Mine took about 3 minutes
I’m doing a plain vanilla new number – no transfers – and still been waiting for some time. The problem is purely AT&T. I talked to a service rep…they’re swamped. But, hey, it’s not like they had any time to plan for this, or had any insight into the demand volumes.
The experience at the Apple Store today was it’s usual: just fantastic service. AT&T, however, is just congenitally stupid (100+ years of inbreeding).
The iphone is overrated. Apple could have avoided all this crap had they allowed us to use our phones through wifi, or use the ipod capability while waiting for the crap AT&T network to activate itself. Stupid Apple… I’m probably going to return this damn thing tomorrow… It simply isn’t worth the headache anymore…
I dunno… I spent all of half an hour and I’m syncing music now. Had to wait for an email, but what do you expect? Anyway, a gazillion people all trying to activate at once means one thing – A GAZILLION PEOPLE BOUGHT IPHONES.
so… woot.
=)
-c
I would imagine that whoever wrote the “iBrick” headline is one of those whose panties are in a bind because they happen to be in that group of people who are having to wait for activation.
I’ve read a great many posts here and at other forums by people who have had no problems. Activation times of 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes – very short times. In fact, I’d wager that most people are not having much trouble. Just some. So that makes it a colossal failure. Right?
Did you really think the manual should’ve been written for TODAY? Or, uh, I don’t know, maybe for *all the other days that this phone will be sold*?
Your ability to adjust says a lot about your character. Welcome to the golden age of the entitlement class.
This issue has nothing to do with the other carriers. It has everything to do with AT&T not being prepared. AT&T could not handle the sudden strain on their network. When you are porting a cell phone number in your new phone is “normally” activated immediately with the new number, but your former carrier may take “normally” up to 20 minutes to release the number and close your old account. During this time period the new phone works to make calls or send sms messages or whatever. (incomming messages and calls will still be recieved by the old phone until the port completes). Unfortunately in this case, the activation itself is not going through and that is the reason that the phones are “iBricks”. Apple put that passage in their user guide to reflect this normal reality. Apple failed to predict that AT&T would be COMPLETELY unprepared for the launch of this phone. Apple will not change their user guide as the problems will be resolved by tomorrow.
Now, do you think Steve has already called Stan Sigman(ATT wireless CEO) or will he wait until the morning? How much is Stan not looking forward to this call? Who will be fired at ATT tomorrow morning. Will Stan take offense to being called a moron or fool or idiot, by Steve? That’s the story I really want to read!
OH NO! it’s botched… unhappy users… iBrick EXTRA! EXTRA! what a drag it must be to have to shovel this kinda shlock to get people to read your blog posts. But I guess it worked.
It looks like the transfer from Verizon is what’s hanging me up – the email message I just got from AT&T says that the my old account won’t be deactivated until 12:34 AM, July 1!!!
Jose, tell me, once the phone IS activated, will it simply not do something that you thought it would do? You’ve read the reviews. You’ve read about the features. You’ve seen the demonstrations. And you wanted one enough to get it on the first day. And now? Well, suddenly it’s an entirely different phone. Suddenly, it’s overrated. Hey genius. Did you even consider the fact that this has nothing to do witht the phone itself. It is simply that AT&T is overloaded *at the moment*. It’s still *the same phone* you supposedly wanted. Geez, where’s my barf bag. You’ll go nowhere in this life. Wimp!
Still waiting for activation after 3+ hours. I am an ex-Verizon customer. Also, went to my local AT&T store (in Manhattan) and they sold out of the 8GB model in a few minutes. Over to the Apple store, no problem.
One of the earlier posts seemed to indicate that there was a recurring trend when porting numbers from Verizon. For those that are having the problems, do you want to rat out the carrier that you are switching from to see if there really are a couple of carriers that are not “playing nice.” I saw one post that said the move from AllTel went okay, so let’s hear from those people too.
“Welcome to the golden age of the entitlement class.”
Touché.
Switched my wife from T-Mobile via iTunes registration. Took less then 5 min to make calls. Took another 5 to completely switch over. AMAZING ! And no “Account Specialist” that tries and prevent you from leaving T-Mobile.
Anyone have smooth activation on a new account? It’s probably the credit check that’s bogging things down. That’s my guess. I started activation a little before 9. I’m in Seattle. So I’m up to an hour’s wait so far. Kinda sucks as it really is just an iBrick until activation completes. That much really really sucks. Those of us who waited in lines hours and can’t activate will be cursing this wait for years to come
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PLEASE DO RETURN IT! You don’t deserve to have it! You little bitch. I’ll give you a ride because you’re obviously unable to contain your grief and should not be driving in your condition.
for some perspective: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/06/27/teens.crash.ap/index.html
OR ANY OTHER NEWS ITEM YOU’D LIKE TO CHOOSE
@ R2
Actually, I was referring to his second sentence, not the last one. He said “most people that received that message have an active iPhone by now.” For him to know that, he needs to a) know people who received the message, b) they get the problem solved, and c) have dealt with a big number of them. Several friends and family with the problem don’t count as most people as they are a very small subset of people buying an iPhone today.
If he is speaking in his capacity of Apple or AT&T employee who work with the problem, then people can be assured that it’s just an insignificant delay. Annoying yes, but not earth shattering.
Sorry to hear about everyones iBrick problem. Mine was being the 50th guy in line and finding out after I get inside the AT&T store that they only had 30 8GB and 10 4GB phones allocated. All gone. I know I live in a town of only 200,000, but I bet they didn’t shortchange the 5th Avenue Apple store in N.Y. So I’m on back order. At least they tell me I’ll get serviced before any online buyers do. Still, I feel like I got “serviced” if you know what I mean. Distortion field is in full force. Hope it comes down before the 4th of July… but I feel a long wait is in my future.
Oh no! Run for your lives everyone! I might actually have to go to bed before my iPhone receives activation! My breathing quickens! I hyperventilate! My heart is bursting out of my unmanly chest! Life is just no good no more! I have now taken a bottle full of iSleeping pills! I’m commiting iSuicide! I’ll be seeing you, my fellow sufferers, on the other iSide. One day, perhaps we will find iPeace. And it will be instantly activated.
Martin: “i got my info from 100’s and 100’s of posts on various forums, including here.”
Gotcha. Thanks for the explanation.
I tried to activate mine at 10 pm and its now 1 am, so 3 hours of waiting so far. Transferring from Verizon.
It’s not the waiting for the phone part that irks me, its that I can’t use the phone for anything, except 911, hell I even thought of calling it so I could actually use the thing.
I’m typing this on iPhone, BITCHES!!!
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />
The keyboard is tricky, but it’s a lot better than plastic keys.
Mama likes….
-c
iPhone activated in under 3 minutes. Matter of fact I was syncing music up when my first phone call came in ….
I’m a New Zealander I have to wait 6 months or more! It could be worse!
CHECK THIS OUT – AT & T Tech Support…
Of course, Waiting for Activation – Called AT & T’s 800 number, and they actually blamed Apple for the problem, and tried to sell me a different phone I would have an easier time activating!
The Nerve.
Realistically – Apple handled the launch flawlessly. I can’t believe AT & T didn’t plan properly for a launch this anticipated, with Guaranteed Contracts no less.
AT & T, as always, shot themselves in the foot when they could have helped recover there famous “Lack of service” reputation and make a GREAT name for themselves next to Apple for Quality and customer satisfaction.
AT & T – still a four letter word.
It doesn’t seem to be widespread, most activations are going through fine.
But I’m transferring from Verizon, and I’m going on 5 hours of waiting for the email that will let me use the iPhone for web, iPod and outgoing calls while I wait for my incoming calls to swtich from my Verizon phone to my new phone.
The number transfer from Verizon is not surprising, since when I tried to get my account number from verizonwireless.com, that site seemed to be bogged down pretty well.
But AT&T’s dropping the ball getting their end activated so that you can do everything else besides receive incoming calls.
In the meantime, I noticed a post on howard hardware that you can drag stuff (I dragged a video, and all the playlists I currently sync to my nano to the iphone in the devices list) to the iphone and it’ll at least sync to it, so hopefully, when it does activate, I’ll at least save a few minutes not having to copy stuff once I set up the sync.
I’m going to sleep on it, and see what happens tomorrow.
But my first call to my new provider is going to be to ask for my $36 activation fee back for my inconvenience.
Near-instant activation (20 sec?) for me here in Kansas around 10:15 p.m. CST. All three of my town’s local AT&T stores sold out.
In San Francisco as well, waiting for activation, talk about AT & T screwing up a golden opportunity handed to them from Apple.
They had the rare chance to make a “second” first impression with Apple Customers. AT & T won’t recover from this. It’s not like they didn’t have time to prepare.
>Any new, publicly untested complex product in demand to this >massive degree, (and activating all at the same time) is going to >hit bumps here and there. It will iron out quickly. Cut ’em a break.
1) Come on. How could this not have been anticipated and tested out by AT&T and Apple? It isn’t like AT&T got crushed after the west coast activations started hammering in–no, their activation process went to shit just off east coast sales, and very quickly after the iPhone went for sale.
2) How many local paper and TV station reviewers do you think will be running reports in tomorrow’s paper that after all the hype and waiting in line, the iPhone is a brick? Again, you telling me that wasn’t anticipated?
3) Since the activiation is “to be expected” with a new product, what dumbasses made the call that the iPhone should be bricked until activated by AT&T? Shouldn’t the iPhone have been configured to at least work as a media player and wifi web browser after going through iTunes activation? Particularly for people that are existing Cingular/AT&T customers? That’s what’s pissing me off–here I sit with a bricked iPod more than 6 hours after purchase and I’ve been a Cingular customer since the ’90s. It’s not like a credit check is needed.
4) Apple made a big deal about this new activation process and how it would be a much better user experience. And this point it looks like iTunes-guided activiation was just a way of getting people out of the stores faster.
5) I got my wife a 4 gig this afternoon in Center City Philadelphia and myself an 8 gig one tonight from King of Prussia. That’s $1,100 worth of spending today and what I have to show for it is two very pretty *paperweights*.
My own annoyance is certainly a minor thing in the universe, and I hope the number of people with iBricks is limited–what makes me sick is imagining the articles in the media tomorrow morning talking about the rollout being a failure because tens of thousands of people waiting in line for hours for bricks.
In Ventura, Calif., about 50 people in line at our Cingular outlet in the Pacific View Mall at 6:30 PM PST. Not really an overwhelmong crowd, but still a decent line. I expected somewhat more. Good, I should be able to pick one up thiss weekend without a problem. And since it will be after the initial mega-blast of activation I expect little difficulty.
Ready for iPhone!
I’m currently experiencing a similar issue. I’ve been propelled by all the hype to sit in line and wait for the iphone. I’m a net admin at my job and we were looking into getting multiple. I purchased 2 and get home and hardly can wait to open it up and play.
I hooked it to my computer. Opened up my itunes upgrade to the current version on the apple site. I’m stepping through the steps. I select existing customer and put in my existing AT&T number and I get the same error “my account couldn’t be used with the iPhone” I FREAKED OUT.
I then thought maybe there was something wrong with the account. Called up AT&T and their saying that the account is fine and give me a number to call telling me it’s a Apple problem. I proceed to call Apple after getting hung up on 2 times I was then able to get a decent IT person. Unfortunately apple hasn’t trained any of there techs on the new iphones so he was no help.
3 Hours later
I got a email saying my activation will take longer.
WTF
Patience to the People!
You have to be kidding me right!! The excerpt you quote at the top says “After Activation is Complete” this means if you are still waiting for AT&T to activate then why would you find this section of the manual applicable?
I too am waiting for my phone to be activated, but come on you can’t say that the information quoted is somehow false!!!
What a friggin nightmare!!! An entire Friday night spent on hold for a phone. Nobody seems to have any idea what to do. They just keep transferring us back and forth. I love Apple, but this is just ridiculous. They knew that there picking one of the worst cell phone carriers out there. They should have made sure this didn’t happen. They’ve had 6 months to work out the kinks in this process while the device was approved by the FCC. Ridiculous!
So will the iPhone play videos out through the headset jack like the video iPod will. For those of you have them working. Somebody try it out and let us know.
Forget about the phone for the night. Drink some tequila or spark up a doobie. Give your wife and/or girlfriend the business. Fall asleep for 10 hours. Wake up. Take your now-activated iPhone to Denny’s and enjoy it while you consume an omlette. The sun will come out tomorrow. I promise.
AT&T gave me a pre apporved credit number that has 14 digits. The apple website activation window tell me that the number should be 9, 12, or 13 digits. AT&T is closed now on both coasts. Anybody have any ideas? Should I pull one of the four zeros, should I leave off the last number ? Thanks.
The few people with problems are writing in. The rest, most of whom have no problems, are reading about all this on their new iPhones!
My Treo looks like a brick but has service. I’ll trade it with one of you whiney losers complaining.
Sorry guys…less than 5 minutes for me!!! i love it
You know, an interesting thread would be for readers to post the most shocking thing they discovered about their phone.
I love the new iphone because it has cool things that it never has before in its daily life a wireless internet connection modulator
http://www.mp4-converter.net/zune-converter/
Almost 6 hours here and it’s still not activated. Simple transfer of ATT existing customer number.
Yes, it will be working tomorrow, I hope, but what a letdown. Not the experience Steve wants for his customers. I hope he takes AT&T out behind the woodshed for screwing up his launch.
Guys,
AT&T is turning on and migrating more cell phone accounts than any company has ever done in such a short period of time. We’re talking about at least a million units, I would guess. Most of the phones are going to be activated over the next couple of hours, as people go to sleep and the number of new transactions drops off.
I would expect some glitches on December 25, also.
-jcr
Guys,
AT&T is turning on and migrating more cell phone accounts than any company has ever done in such a short period of time. We’re talking about at least a million units, I would guess. Most of the phones are going to be activated over the next couple of hours, as people go to sleep and the number of new transactions drops off.
I would expect some glitches on December 25, also.
-jcr
Guys,
AT&T is turning on and migrating more cell phone accounts than any company has ever done in such a short period of time. We’re talking about at least a million units, I would guess. Most of the phones are going to be activated over the next couple of hours, as people go to sleep and the number of new transactions drops off.
I would expect some glitches on December 25, also.
-jcr
Guys,
AT&T is turning on and migrating more cell phone accounts than any company has ever done in such a short period of time. We’re talking about at least a million units, I would guess. Most of the phones are going to be activated over the next couple of hours, as people go to sleep and the number of new transactions drops off.
I would expect some glitches on December 25, also.
-jcr
I transferred my number from Verizon it took me 4 hours and 21 minutes. I was disappointed I stood in line for almost 3 hours (with some really cool people mind you) and the got home to play with the holy grail of mobile phones to wait until 2AM to actually even sync.
On a funny side note, there were about 10 teenage to early twenty folk in the front of the line trying to sell their spots for up to a couple of hundred dollars, after spending all night waiting for the iphone. I said I bet those guys are just here to try to make some money and can’t even afford the iphone. Low and behold they all packed up their chairs, laptops, sleeping bags and one tent. As they march out of the Somerset Collection in Troy, Michigan they chastised the crowd shouting “We sat here all damn night and not one of you would buy our spots…. this is Bull****!” We all pretty much laughed and thought to ourselves they should have had shirts that said
“iSuck” lol. All but lucky No. 2 he said he sold his for $100 bucks but I tend to doubt it.
All in all it was a good time, the line was pretty long so people would ask what we were doing, we said oh waiting in line for that new Orange Mocha from Starbucks!
I was as if Apple was giving birth to a new baby, the apple store was giving us water, and when they launched the iPhone many of the Apple Store Staff came out to greet us, it was hugs all around as we all made the iPhone part of our new families.
im at just under six hours. NOTHING.
Add me to the list – 4 1/2 hours later… Still waiting for activation.
You lucky things, we in England have a vague date of October for the Iphone launch. The only advantage we might have is if tweeking needs to happen, you will have been the guinea pigs! But waiting a couple of hours for connection with such a popular launch, in the scheme of things is not bad. If I could I would buy one now.
My iPhone came to life in less than 2 minutes! Yessssssssssssss… it was worth the wait!
this thing is great
Has anyone tried to sync an Apple keyboard to an iPhone yet?
Some iPhones ship without SIM card (or with improperly seated SIM card), will not activate
We purchased an iPhone 8GB today (after waiting in line at the local AT&T store for about 8 hours), only to find that once home and opened, the device lacked a SIM card. iTunes and the phone both displayed a message indicating that no valid, unlocked SIM card was inserted, and that the card is required for activation. Our iPhone lacked both a SIM card and a SIM card tray.
Source: http://www.macfixit.com/
My total time for activation was 4-5 minutes @ 8:30 CDT. I’m actually more pleased with the phone than I expected to be and the Edge speeds are definitely faster than expected.
all you weeping sissies, keep your pants on..
if porting your number takes 30 mins. or even 30 hrs. you should rejoice.. porting your number from another carrier here in Denmark can take up to 1 month. so dance a dance of happiness instead of all that bitching, you got your iphone, i’ll wait till October.
MDN MW another, as in another glorious victory for apple..
It sounds like most, if not all, of the people who’ve acheived a state of activation are quite satisfied with the iPhone… which is great news for those of us who are waiting.
MACDAILYNEWS … PUT THE COFFEE DOWN!
This amounts to a mild inconveience of maybe, perhaps, 3 hours to SOME of the thousands assaulting AT&Ts; IT systems. Hey, stop bitching and report this with balance and thoughtful insight.
Cry Ass Babies. All I gotta say is congrats to Apple and AT&T for a job well done.
Wahhhh, wahhhh, my phone didnt work on the biggest cellualar sign up day in history, wahhhhhhh
Grow the fuck up.
grigori
You have to try it to believe it. It is incredible. Easy to use, quick to learn, its the perfect phone. Don’t wait, get it.
just be glad you got one. we wait for hours to get an iphone and only 60 were on hand. that in my mind was poor planning.
When I read the title here I almost didn’t bother reading the rest of the article and if the market were open today I’d sell my stock and wait for it to bottom out.
I thought AT&T screwed up the activation and the iPhones people bought were iBricked and they had to return them in masses, and that nobody would bother buying an iPhone until this was solved.
A better headline would be:
“AT&T Experiences Activation Delays caused by almost Half a Million New iPhone Acounts.”
I’m shocked at the corporate apologists here. The facts are:
(a) folks spent $500 to $1200 on their iPhones,
(b) folks are ready to commit at least $60/month for 24 months to AT&T, and
(c) the AT&T CEO and his management team are making big salaries to make sure their operations run smoothly and that customers are satisfied.
AT&T needs to learn a lesson from JetBlue’s CEO and do the right thing by explaining to us what they’re going to do differently moving forward and the real reason for this screwup with activations.
Stop apologizing and rationalizing why it’s ok for these executives to let their companies fail their customers expectations when THEY SET THE HIGH EXPECTATIONS.
At times I wonder if some people are trying to manipulate the stock. If “iBrick” is picked up by enough outlets, that could do it. Going short? The SEC looks into these sorts of things. Especially if someone points them in the right direction. Food for thought.
I am on hour 6 and I am ready to toss the ibrink against the wall. I do not think I would be as frustrated if I was able to use my old phone. My expectations were that this thing would work for the money. I have called ATT serveral times with them to tell me that there is nothing I can do. I am an existing customer so I do not know what the hold up is. I wish they would have checked all of us on the way out the door to make sure we had working phones any other time and any other phone they would. So this pilot phone gets the worst treatment from apple and att alike. Cingular was not the best company but ATT seems to be worse based on their planning for this. Congrats to everyone that has a real iPhone and not an iBrick that can call 911.
“I’m shocked at the corporate apologists here.”
Mike, get a grip. Nobody has ever activated so many cell phone accounts in such a short time, in the entire history of the cell phone industry.
If Apple and AT&T hit a 99.9% success rate, that would still mean about a thousand people will have an issue activating their phones. What we’re seeing here is a handful of people running into a problem. The *fact* you leave out is:
(d) that this process is going remarkably smoothly.
-jcr
“I’m shocked at the corporate apologists here.”
Mike, get a grip. Nobody has ever activated so many cell phone accounts in such a short time, in the entire history of the cell phone industry.
If Apple and AT&T hit a 99.9% success rate, that would still mean about a thousand people will have an issue activating their phones. What we’re seeing here is a handful of people running into a problem. The *fact* you leave out is:
(d) that this process is going remarkably smoothly.
-jcr
“I’m shocked at the corporate apologists here.”
Mike, get a grip. Nobody has ever activated so many cell phone accounts in such a short time, in the entire history of the cell phone industry.
If Apple and AT&T hit a 99.9% success rate, that would still mean about a thousand people will have an issue activating their phones. What we’re seeing here is a handful of people running into a problem. The *fact* you leave out is:
(d) that this process is going remarkably smoothly.
-jcr
“I’m shocked at the corporate apologists here.”
Mike, get a grip. Nobody has ever activated so many cell phone accounts in such a short time, in the entire history of the cell phone industry.
If Apple and AT&T hit a 99.9% success rate, that would still mean about a thousand people will have an issue activating their phones. What we’re seeing here is a handful of people running into a problem. The *fact* you leave out is:
(d) that this process is going remarkably smoothly.
-jcr
I’m as much an Apple fan as anyone, but this has been a nightmare. I’m over four hours and three phonecalls to AT&T in and stil all I can see is that stupid globe.
The last rep said… “well just take another look in the morning, maybe it’ll work then”… and… “don’t call back again until 24 hours, though, because our systems are really behind and it could take that long.” Two out of the three reps I talked to were very nice (the third was totally incompetent), but all of them referenced major systems logjams at AT&T tonight.
In my case, I think it was because I was originally a CellOne/*old* AT&T wireless customer who never switched to Cingular. Still… why should it be harder to switch somebody who’s already a customer than somebody from another network altogether.
well, i’ve been in limbo for 5 hours now.
i kind of understand the backlog because of the hundreds of thousands of phones being simultaneously activated, but this still sucks. the lady i spoke with a while ago said that it’s because every state is using the same system since they’re all the same phone. bad logistics in my book, but i’m not the head, so i’ll just go to bed and hope to fuckin god that i’m not just looking at the stupid globe…
“This is just like installing CS3!!!”
At least you don’t have to deal with Adobe tech support. they’re complete morons.
I wouldn’t be surprised if at least 3 out of 4 people were able to activate their phones in less than 15 minutes. And I also wouldn’t be surprised if 3 out of 4 of the remainder were able to activate within the hour. So what we have left is a whiny minority of people who happened to have not made it through on this historically high purchase day. And somehow that consitutes an utter failure. Because after all, it’s all about *you*. Everything comes back to *you*.
And again, somehow this means all kinds of disappointing things about the iPhone itself. Taking longer than you’d prefer to have it activate means it’s suddenly not a breakthrough device.
As one man-child said, “I’m ready to throw my iBrick at the wall.”
Ya see. The term “iBrick” has already caught on. Splendid! Gates, Ballmer, Enderle, Dvorak, Verizon, Nokia, et al, all thank you from the bottom of that place where a heart would normally be.
My 10 year old son said to me a couple of months ago,”Daddy were you alive before mobile phones”.
Well the iphone is a revelutionary device and with such hype and so many wanting it, a small percentage are bound to have a problem. Please stop moaning, you lucky things.
When someone says, “This has been a nightmare”, I am left marveling at how someone could have lived to adulthood and never had any real problems.
If our ancestors could’ve seen into the future and have a gander at our delicate asses, they’d stop reproducing right then and there.
“a small percentage are bound to have a problem. Please stop moaning, you lucky things.”
The percentage doesn’t seem so small. And why shouldn’t fanboys moan when the company which defines their very life and reason for existence disappoints them.
So Apple for screwed the pooch, not making sure systems were sufficiently robust to activate a lot of phones in a short time.
Probably they should have stayed with in store activation, so at least people would walk out with working phones.
But in doing that, they would have slowed the pace of first day sales.
So now we have the headline “one million non working bricks fly off shelves in iPhones first few hours” rather than than “Stores stay open through the night and one million Happy iPhone customers are set up and working”
“If our ancestors could’ve seen into the future and have a gander at our delicate asses, they’d stop reproducing right then and there.”
True, Mac users are whiners, but that’s still not an excuse for Apple to screw up.
What’s funny about all this is that these are the same people that just had to be early adopters. Just had to be right on the edge. Just had to get it the first day. The wisdom of waiting at least a day or two never occurred to them, and their plan of being among the first of the super cool people didn’t work according to specification.
And now as it turns out, people that just walk in leisurely to the Apple store tomorrow and pick up their iPhone will be ready to roll about the same time as the line waiters. A bunch of Greg “Fudge” Packers.
That’s why I don’t understand all of the people that just have to go see a big movie on opening weekend – when the crowds are too large and obnoxious. It’s as if they don’t understand the movie will still be playing the next weekend.
“True, Mac users are whiners, but that’s still not an excuse for Apple to screw up.”
________________________
Apple screwed up? They just came out with one of the greatest gadgets ever, you nimrod.
If anyone *really* thinks they bought an “iBrick”, then have the courage of your convictions and return the damn thing to the store tomorrow. But you won’t do that. You’ll get it activated, and then you’ll be giddy for 15 minutes, and then you’ll find something else to be unhappy about.
This is a momentary problem, on AT&T’s end, probably worsened in many cases deliberately by those companies who are having to cancel all of these accounts, and I wasn’t at all surprised that this happened. Some of you think life should be governed by one big magic wand. Things are a little more complex than that.
After 6 hours the activation finally went through. I am now typing this post from my iPhone. All I can say is this thing is wonderful! Well worth the wait!
I was told by AT&T support person that many people are being denied a credit check because the system is “overloaded.”
My favorite quote: “It’s just that everyone came all at once, we just didn’t know that would happen.”
frigtards
So, I have an iBrick^h^h^h^h^h^h — deactivated device that will someday instill a sense of childlike wonder in us all.
Isaiah
All of the carriers are pathetic and clueless on their BEST day.
They DON’T want to serve you, help you, guide you.
They want your MONEY.
They charge for anything and everything, all the time, whatever they can get away with.
Then one day, Steve Jobs said, “Someone needs to show them they can make plenty of money without being sh*tbirds. If they would just let ME try out my ideas, maybe they could learn by example?….”
And so the dark cloud hovering above every cell phone user began, at last, to fade a bit…
And they all lived applely ever after.
“Apple screwed up? They just came out with one of the greatest gadgets ever, you nimrod.”
And what bit of them screwing up the activation process is not obvious to you? How does the quality of the gadget in any way affect what a huge screw-up the activation process is.
And stop spouting crap like it’s all AT&T’s fault. Apple and AT&T figured out together how to activate the phones, and agreed the logistics for launch day. And it doesn’t have anything to do with number transfers, existing AT&T customers who brought the phones are having problems.
Your position seems to be, “It’s a wonderful Apple product, you should be prepared to put up with some shit to get it working”
As I said earlier, I have to wait until October/December to even have a chance to buy an iphone in England or for that matter nearly anywhere ouside the US. Why if you were prepared to wait in line for so long, are you moaning about in comparitive terms a short wait for activation! Especially knowing you would be one of a large crowd!
WELL DONE APPLE, NO BUSINESS DOWNTIME, just at the begining of the weekend.
When it is launched hear assuming Vodafone have exclusivity, I will have it couriered and as a heavy business user probably get it free! Will I moan, god no. Will I waste time in line, no. Will it work easily, probably knowing Vodafone and having had Apples for 20 years.
I hope the lauch is as succesful here in the UK.
You lucky moaners, “have a nice day” with your wonderfull new product. If they are “ibrick’s” please throw them over the Atlantic as we would love them now.
Come on people use your noodles. It’s very clear the manual is wrong . Very clear indeed.
Remember being a member of the Church of Apple is not about Apple products being better or easier to set up and use than other products.
It’s about you pretending to your friends that Apple products are better or easier to set up and use than other products even when they’re not.
Keep The Faith, and stop it with these negative posts or I’ll personally see to it that your iPhone never gets activated.
Thanks,
Steve.
Seattlemike comes from Redmond.
I guess all those bitching are the sort of folks that storm out of the supermarket if they have to queue for more than 5 minutes.
Having waited 6 months what is 6 hours extra ?
I’d be more concerned if there were dozens of DOA posts – and I’ve not read one; or that it isn’t working as advertised.
As it is the FUD seems pretty thin on the ground.
Well…I have to agree! I expect a heading like this on other forums but not here. I am certain that if there was another site (Cnet..whatever..) using this “headline”, we all (incl. MDN) would spit them in the face.
not a very good take except for gettin stock down:
“Even Mac fanboys call iPhone brick”….they won’t have to make that up.
MacB
AT&T was NOT “overwhelmed”. I was told by one rep that there was a bug that caused many iPhone subscriptions to sign up for a non-existent calling plan. The department that handles those plans was closed, so they are scrambling. In the meantime AT&T’s smokescreen is saying “We’re overwhelmed” or “it takes 24hrs to transfer your old phone number”.
THAT is why there is a “mixed message” as this article points out. Its because of an entirely secret problem going on right now that AT&T won’t admit to. Yes, you should be able to play with your iPhone while you wait for your number to transfer. Until then, I was told by AT&T that all subscription requests are ON HOLD. thats right…ON HOLD.
Activation request: 9:09PM CST 29Jun07
As of 4:09AM CST 30JUN07 still not activated.
That makes 7 hours so far… (No, I did not stay awake watching for it to happen…)
Dear “Real World”, since you are stone stupid, I will use emphasis on certain words in some of my replies in an effort to help you navigate things with a little more clarity.
______________________________
Real World wrote: “And what bit of them screwing up the activation process is not obvious to you?”
My reply: The bit where it is AT&T’s job to activate the damn thing – you friggin’ genius. You’re not going to pretend you know the specific technical problem, are you? It’s mostly an AT&T thing, I’ll guarantee it.
Real World wrote: “How does the quality of the gadget in any way affect what a huge screw-up the activation process is.”
My reply: A better question would be, “How does a momentary delay in activation affect the quality of the gadget?” I have to ask, in that a number of wimps here have thrown their little tantrums and said things like, “I’m about ready to hurl this iBrick against the wall.” And this, just hours after wetting their panties for it in line.
Real World wrote: “And stop spouting crap like it’s all AT&T’s fault.”
My reply: Real world, I don’t know how to break it to you, bro, but I will continue saying *exactly* what I prefer to say, and you’ll not have any control over that. You best pound that into your skull. Maybe with the sharp end of a hammer.
Real World: “Apple and AT&T figured out together how to activate the phones, and agreed the logistics for launch day. And it doesn’t have anything to do with number transfers, existing AT&T customers who brought the phones are having problems.”
My reply: Again, you’re pretending that you know what it has anything to do with. Funny, that, because my impression of you is that you probably are doing good just to remember to wipe when you’re done. And if you were half as smart as you wish you were, you’d have been able to read what I *actually* wrote. What I said was that “it was *probably* worsened in *many* cases…”. I did not set it up as the solitary cause, but yes, I wouldn’t be surprised if it is *one* of the factors. And a holdup in this regard, *could* throw other things off, even if they’re not related. Again, life is a little more complicated than just “what I want”.
Real World wrote: “Your position seems to be, ‘It’s a wonderful Apple product, you should be prepared to put up with some shit to get it working’.”
My reply: No, my position does not seem to be that. That is only your characterization of my position. A characterization brought about by your irretrievable stupidity. My actual position is that some of you people are a bunch of nutless, gutless, sniveling, whining, moronic shit wits that really need to grow a pair. Just get the f**k to bed and get some damn perspective. You’ll have your f**king blessed activation tomorrow. Deal with it, wimps!
So presumably people would have preferred standing at the counter for, let’s argue, sixty minutes waiting for the phone to be activated.
Approximately 2000 outlets (1800 AT&T + 200 Apple) multiplied by, again let’s theorise, 10 members of staff per outlet as an average: 20,000 phones/hour multiplied by five hours would mean a launch of 100,000 phones.
Assuming 30% of those 100,000 were migrating from whomever, 30,000 people would still be waiting for activation with longer waits for the bigger networks (Verizon).
There’s also always a bandwidth factor in sending the activation messages to the phone: as far as I recall, the messages simply get inserted into the SMS queue – join up in a metropolitan area and you get screwed by the traffic that already exists, join up in the country and you get screwed by the backhaul connections.
Buyer beware. You are talking Cingular/AT&T. What good is the best phone ever made going to do if it cannot get through on the network? Apple will rapidly find out how much they are at the mercy of AT&T. I love using my Mac, but until Apple does business with other cell providers, I am not sure I would buy an iPhone. Just imagine the iPhone having EVDO capability.
I’m waiting 5 1/2 hours… no activation yet.
I’m wondering if
1- west coast has it worse?
or
2- there’s an issue with transferring numbers?
Well I just thought I would check again
I tried to activate @ 8pm fri now 5:35 am sat morning THATS 10 HOURS LATER
no workie
🙁
$700 and 3 hours in line bought me worry .. will this ever work??.
I am a Apple head but att screwed me. They gave me a wrong number ( pre-aprov ) . And even after repeated calls to their help desk all I get is a wait and I don’t know when I can use this this thing. Depending on who this happened to … many pissed people coming monday.
My main compliant is COME ON APPLE LET ME USE THE IPHONE PART!!!! I JUST PAID $700 DOLLARS FOR AN IPOD. AT LEAST THE WAIT WOULD BE OK
I THINK MANY PEOPLE GOT A BAD EXPERIENCE.
“My reply: No, my position does not seem to be that. That is only your characterization of my position. A characterization brought about by your irretrievable stupidity. My actual position is that some of you people are a bunch of nutless, gutless, sniveling, whining, moronic shit wits that really need to grow a pair. Just get the f**k to bed and get some damn perspective. You’ll have your f**king blessed activation tomorrow. Deal with it, wimps!”
or to put it more simply “‘It’s a wonderful Apple product, you should be prepared to put up with some shit to get it working’.”
“You best pound that into your skull. Maybe with the sharp end of a hammer.”
My bet is you spend a lot of time having the blunt end of a hammer pounded up your bleeding ass. And enjoying it because you’re not a wimp. And thanking the hammer company for making such a revolutionary product. Fine. Each to his own.
Got mine at 7pm PST… took me approximately 1.5 minutes to activate and migrate my phone number.
My blackberry pearl went immediately dead and I was off and running on the iphone.
I did have some issues getting it to activate on my mac book pro running leopard developers OS, so I just activated it with my XP itunes and then went back to itunes on leopard to do all the music/video/email syncing…
Worked like a charm… bummer for those who are having problems!
“So presumably people would have preferred standing at the counter for, let’s argue, sixty minutes waiting for the phone to be activated.”
If it took that long. For an existing AT&T customer you’d just take the phone and swap the SIM over. Forgot. Can’t do that.
For number transfers, once any phone is in the ATT system, it works immediately, all you’d be waiting for is for you to get inbound calls on your old number.
So to summarize:
Wait in line for 12hrs, wait at desk for 15-30 minutes, leave with working iPhone.
or the Steve Jobs alternative:
Wait in line for 12 hrs, wait at desk for time it takes to buy phone and leave, online activate. not working call ATT support. on hold for 3 hrs. still not working, call back later, nobody can give useful information. Wake up Saturday, still not working, call support again, repeat sunday etc etc.
There will be people who will be begging to have been able to spend a few more minutes in the store having Apple and ATT get it right and resolve any problems while they waited rather than the hell they’re now involved in.
I am on the East coast and still not activated. I am now up to 11 hours w/o activation. I don’t care about my number trasnfer, but they COULD activate me. I undertand their problem, but that doesn’t stop me from beng fustrated and disappointed in this part of the process. The iPhone is great … I just want to experience the greatness.
Nice try on the FUD meter… worked fine for me. But keep the laughs coming…no really…
So … even better, while on hold with AT&T I tried my old Verizon cell phone and see that it is now deactivated. So now my number has been transferred but my new one is STILL unacttivated.
Patience, my fellow citizens!
Relax people, now you now how Zune people feel. You have the device, mission one complete. Stage two wait for activation. Hell even if it takes a month it will happen.
I have a question … before the phone activates, should I see bars in the display (top left)? I have none. Anyone else able to say how theirs looks?
“Anyone else able to say how theirs looks?”
Mine looks great, it just doesn’t do anything.
Forget about this how is the actual phone. Does the touch screen work as easily as shown in the vids? Do your fingers stick a bit? Dose it smear? Is It heavy? Is It light? Is it scratched yet? Details please.
Waiting 12 hours on activation — nothing. This slider to the emergency call screen is getting old!
@Mike
Do you see any netowrk signal bars on the phone even though it is not activated? I am trying to figure out if I have a hardware problem. Thanks.
Anyone wanna sell me there iphone I’ll give you 200 bucks for it. Hell it dosn’t work, right?
My gawd, listen to these pu$$y crybabies… I had to wait 3 hours…. bhaaaaaaaaa…. mommy they don’t let me play with my toy….. bhaaaaa uhhhhhhh….
AT&T must be the devil incarnated, how evil!
where I live I can’t even buy the iPhone, you bunch of spoiled moron idiots!
No it will not show you any signal bars until activated — so that is NOT indicative of the service you will get in your area don’t worry.
Zero problems here. Only understandable waits. I wasn’t even interested in making calls for the first hour. I was too in awe of all the features and played around with the phone until I got the all-clear from AT&T. It all took about an hour on my phone and I got both an email and SMS letting me know my account was transferred and my phone was activated. To me, the whole process of activating and transferring was genius and groundbreaking. The other phone companies are toast.
Kudos to both companies to make it so seamless.
Now back to ooohhing and aaaahhing over my iPhone….
This reminds me of the time I had to go purchase a mobile phone. Took an hour to go through the paper work, and over 72 hours to activate.
What a bunch of whiners. Get real this is a huge release and look, under a day of delay for activation. I haven’t read anyone waiting more than a day, and I am sure there will be some, but the point will be muted by the reaction over the next few days, that is if you believe the hype.
7 hours and still waiting. Kansas City.
i’m 13 hours in and still waiting. at&t claims the issue is getting my number/account info from sprint. must say, east coast, my phone call was answered in < 5 mins, the rep spent 20+ mins working on it. and my email told me to expect to wait 24 hours. annoying that the advertising said to expect “up to 6”. but given the volumes, i don’t think this is too bad – as long as they make the 24 hours.
Meanwhile, in other news:
Children are starving in Darfur…
People in North Korea are not able to even say what they want to say, much less on a touch-screen phone that costs more than they made last year…
And right here in the US, people are going hungry, some literally living on the streets mere blocks away from where you just plunked down $600 for a PHONE.
I have no problem with people paying huge sums of money for gadgetry. I have a few gadgets myself (home and business full of macs…). That being said, the iPhone has somehow brought out the worst in people. Lines longer than on election day. Handing over sums of money that would make you throw up if you were giving it away. And to top it off, acting like it’s the end of the world as you know it because the phone won’t activate for a few hours! Some people need to get a good dose of PERSPECTIVE.
I guess I lucked out? Mine was activated, able to make and receive calls, connected to my wireless network, and synced less than 10 minutes after plugging it into my iMac! This was at 8:30pm CT. Flawless.
I moved over an existing AT&T number to my phone and activated in less than 15 minutes at about 8PM EST. Sorry to hear some others have had delays. But I was extremely impressed with the process. So much better than an hour in the store for all my prior phone purchases.
I am still waiting for mine 12 hours later.
From the FCC website on number portability:
How long will the porting process take?
For a wireless-to-wireless transfer, the porting process should take approximately two and a half hours from the time the porting request is made of the old carrier. The FCC has not mandated a specific time frame for the wireless-to-wireless porting process. Two and a half hours is the time frame agreed upon by the wireless industry, and the FCC encourages carriers to use that time frame.
Now Quitcherwhinin’
Bought it, was connected and working within minutes. This thing is incredible. I love it.
I bought three. Hours on the phone with ATT and Apple. Now they tell me 36 hrs to activate. I only have a cell. So I’m SOL. I’m a lont time ATT/Cingular user.
I have $1800 worth of crap/ And no phone to communicate at all.
I posted to the Apple Forms Phone just saying wow how come these two couldn’t get it together. POST REMOVED WITHIN 4 MINUTES!!!
All new people to Aple and ATT are saying this is the worst companies in the world.
Can you imagine people introdced to Apple and this is what they get. Now you know why Apple did this on a Friday after 4pm EST. Stock market is closed. Watch both Apple and ATT tank Monday morning on the first bell.
Apple you blew it big time. This is non recoverable for a lot of people, IMO.
A pathetic display of f*ck the customer.
if the market were open today I’d sell my stock and wait for it to bottom out.
Does anyone think Apple’s choice of a post-market-close release just before an extended holiday weekend was accidental?
This will all be straightened out and long forgotten by the start of trading on Monday July 9th, when people get back from their vacations.
My wife and I had our phones fully activated and ready to go in under five minutes, and we were even transferring numbers from T-Mobile.
Overall, a groundbreaking experience. Apple’s got another winner here, folks. As soon as folks get to hold one in their hands and try it out, they are going to want one. It really is that good.
5 Pages?! That has got to be a record MDN! talk about a meaty subject!!:-)
looking forward to having mine activated in 2008 🙁
I have been on and off the phone with AT&T (and on hold) all morning. They said my activation was “on hold”, but they don’t why. It has NOTHING to do with the transfer of my Verizon number or the credit check. Activation occurs exclusive of the old number transfer, which many people are forgetting. I love the hardware (I own 1100 shares of AAPL), but the AT&T (in)activation process and wait times on the phone and the lack of information are indicative of a company that was NOT ready for this big event. I am now on hold and I am going to cancel my original activation and start from square one again (the most helpful person I talked to so far said it may be the only way to get it to work). Because of the activation reset, I will probably lose the ability to transfer my old phone number because my old number from Verizon was released 10 hours ago. I am definately going to make sure they at least waive my activation fee.
I tried to avoid problems by doing a brand new activation with a new number. After waiting 4 hours I got an email telling me to log in to the website, the only problem is that the “process” never gave me my new phone number to log in with!! Customer service is CLOSED until 9 am… how wonderful!! I know I will miss T-Mobile badly!
I agree that the hardware seems 1st rate, but the mobile partner is HORRIBLE. Sure, this is a huge surge, but why do you stage an event like this if you can’t handle it?!! It is bad planning pure and simple. There are no excuses for this.
Very poor judgment from an Apple supporter using the term iBrick. I’m disappointed in MDN.
Sounds like the kind of FUD you usually criticize from other “ink stained retches”.
I think I’ll find a new source of Apple news.
Is anyone taking notice of the POSITIVE coments here? A lot of people were hooked up pretty quick. Some a little longer. Some may have to wait a bit. It’s all good, we’ll all look back and laugh one day. You’ll all have fully functioning phones soon. Don’t panic, it’ll happen.
me (poster above), go have a lie down.
New To Mac,
They weren’t necessarily staging an event. But you gotta start selling a new product sometime. Not there fault 4 billion people want the thing and wanna sign up at the same time. The heat will die down in a couple of days.
Me…
Where did you buy the three phones? Presumably you stood in two lines at some point yesterday or did someone else stand in one line for you?
And, if you don’t mind me saying, if you only had a cell before wouldn’t it have been more intelligent to acquire two phones first, get them operational and then migrate your third phone?
Or, and here’s the kicker, are you just a troll/astroturfer?
So we’re not bitchin about Paris anymore then?
I tried to activate once.
Your corporate apologists.
MacDailyNews can stick up for the user forever as far as I’m concerned.
MDN is obviously on the side of the user here.
Bravo, MDN!!!
You don’t know the history of cellular billing and customer management systems.
I do!
Not sure if this will help, but one poster elsewhere was able to get her iphone to function, except for incoming calls by:
my iPhone is no longer a brick but still awaiting activation from ATT
Slide the iphone open to make an emerg call and look for the time it says at the top.
Now, go into your clock on PC or MAC and change the clock to match the phone. Now, sync with iTunes 7.3
Now your brick iPhone will work except for the porting number issue and things on ATTs side.
I called my house and it worked…
I found the solution after staying up way too late searching….
Cheers!
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Pete:
Thanks for your response. The event (the release of the phone in such quantities and with such fanfare) should have been done differently if they knew they couldn’t handle the activations. Apple clearly produced enough units to meet the demand. AT&T on the other hand, clearly did not get ready. So the roll out was botched on AT&T’s side. There is no doubt in my mind that Apple is not happy with this. So it is normal for me, the customer, to be dissatisfied as well.
So in short, I disagree with the assertion that it is “not their fault”. It surely is. You shouldn’t sell what you can’t support. Apple could have trickled the phones at a slower rate, for example, if they had known that AT&T can’t handle the activations. They shouldn’t say that activation is “easy” and done in the comfort of your own home, when it is in fact difficult, unpredictable and frustrating.
Seeing all these whining losers here, especially the one who wrote the headline, all I can say:
iMORON!
Now I can understand why Americans are becoming the most hated a$$holes around the world…
… this thread truly shows why!
I bought one just after 10 at the clarendon apple store and was able to activate in under 5 minutes replacing an existing AT&T number.
I’m patient, however. This too shall pass, though until it does, I’m not sure iBrick is so inappropriate… just points out, as many others have, that AT&T is going to be the factor that hinders iPhone adoption, more than the price or lack of application support.
I think the problem was mostly with people moving telephone numbers from Verizon and other carriers. That was the issue in my case. But eventually the switchover happened.
It is worth remembering that AT&T doesn’t have a lot of control over the release of a number from another carrier. I can assure you, Verizon was doing all it could to make the transfer slow and painful.
“My gawd, listen to these pu$$y crybabies… I had to wait 3 hours…. bhaaaaaaaaa…. mommy they don’t let me play with my toy….. bhaaaaa uhhhhhhh….
Yeah, who cares if it works or not. It will in a day or so…. maybe. It’s all part of the user experience. Our job as Apple fanboys is to ignore these “little glitches” (ya know, like the $600 iPhone in front of us does nothing).
Apple blew it. Period. I’m sure they will get it fixed and the iPhone will be a success in the end, but quit defending this nonsense.
When they screw up, they screw up. You cheerleaders make me sick. Congratulation to MDN for standing up for the users.
Hey ‘Gotta Wonder’, you are completely WRONG & have demonstrated your complete ignorance of how cell phone activation & number portability work….
The delay has NOTHING TO DO w/ a delay by the porting carrier, and EVERYTHING TO DO w/ the carrier doing the activation (in this case Crapular, er I mean Cingular, er, no, I mean AT&T – wasn’t it AT&T Wireless once before?)…. It ONLY affects the ability to receive incoming calls & texts (duh!)
Maybe it has something to do w/ both Consumer Reports & JD Powers ranking Cingular/AT&T either at the BOTTOM or second to the BOTTOM in every market they operate in for network quality….
Even David Pogue, Apple cheerleader, pointed out the poor repuation of the Cingular/AT&T network & the mediocre voice quality (due to GSM’s poor vocoders)
“The patient man shows much good sense, but the quick-tempered (impatient) man displays folly at its height.”
MacGuy: I hope you’re including the exorbitant prices for gadgets and bad service in why people hate Americans. NOT being unhappy about shelling out $600 for a phone and having the hype not match reality would be worse than thinking it’s simply not a problem.
Please don’t be a blind apologist. The phone is clearly an amazing piece of equipment. However the process should have been much better for the price and for the hype.
We should acknowledge both the good and the bad.
13 Hours and STILL WAITING.
Dallas,
Bought 3 iphones. All activated under 10 minutes. No Problems here.
Pure apologists should just stop it. Words of wisdom about patient men? Give me a break.
Would you have been happy, patient and not care if after you paid $600 for your last mobile phone at the store you were kept waiting 7 hours (and counting) and no one could tell you what you’re waiting for or when it was going to end? Of course not.
Give me a break. Stop being a blind apologist. This can’t be OK just because it comes from Apple. You’d get more respect if you call things as they are.
Can you still use it as an iPod until you get activated? I mean forget the phone bit for a minute, can you use other ‘no need to be online’ functions?
Willy:
You can’t do ANYTHING with the iPhone until it’s activated.
Ralph M: I’m not transferring a number. Asked for new service and have excellent credit. I now finally know my phone number, but the phone is sitting there not activated yet. I’m told I just have to wait with no ETA.
This is a bit off topic but has everyone noted the sudden abundance of mobile phone offers with a 1000 or more minutes for $39.99 or less?
I would have to say that unlimited called for $39.99 give or take a bit is just around the corner!
It’s always a bit sad when a whole industry wakes up one morning (a long weekend no less) and finds it’s without a product and is forced to fall back on price as their only weapon against the new kid on the block…
Watch out for falling and yes even a few flaming parachute – as the so called leadership seeks greener fields!
Well I knew that it would have been best to wait a couple of weeks and I am glad I did. This is the type of crap that I will not tolerate. And not for nothing, since AT&T won’t/can’t provide for even the basic activation at their store, what would be the point of buying one there.
15 hours and counting
phone no workie
funny thing is — once it works I know I will be cool but this a major major f-up
I am an apple fan to the core but this sucks and is painful
Sill it is very disheartening for us that got caught up in the hype surrounding the iPhone. I set aside funds for the purchase, got in line early, got my iPhone and brought it home, updated iTunes and plugged in the iPhone only to have the activation time-out. I got an email message from AT&T saying that it was going to take 24 hours to activate my phone. I am 11 hours into that time period and my iPhone is still not active and I don’t have any ideication from AT&T that the activation will be happening anytime soon.
What a let down.
MW: yet – as in my iPhone doesn’t work yet.
Waiting on hold with AT&T Tier I support to be transfer over to Tier II, AT&T Tier II supports decided to drop my call. Yay for support!
I’ve been waiting almost 12 hours for activation. I just called AT&T to see if there’s anything I can do to help speed the transfer from T-Mobile, and on their iPhone support line I got a recorded message stating they can not take my call because they are experiencing technical difficulties. I think the situation is getting worse, not better.
@Kerry Hale
Hear hear. At least a few people have some perspective.
“Always someone ready to complain…”
An always some jackass complaining about people complaining…without irony.
I was fortunate that my activatation took about 2 minutes.
I was also fortunate that at 7pm the iPhone line at my neighborhood Apple store was only 15 minutes long.
I think this might have to do with location. I’m in the Boston area and the one other person I know that bought an iPhone is having the same problems.
Probably, thousands of units were sold within hours; it is a new, complex device that relies on electronic communication over the Internet to become activated; it involves two separate companies (Apple and AT&T), and in most cases more than two (where buyers need to transfer their phone numbers from reluctant and primed-to-rain-on-the-parade third parties) companies; it probably needed an operation to be run on military lines in order to achieve high-percentage success.
It is understandable that people who are willing to spend a number of uncomfortable days and nights lining up outside stores would be impatient to get their prized new toy to start working, like, yesterday. I would too.
But let’s get realistic here. Did anyone believe that, under these extreme circumstances, everything would be hunky-dory? I would suggest that iPhone owners who are having problems should take a chill pill, relax and enjoy this event-packed weekend, and then come back and in good time, get their devices working.
Looking at some of the blogs yesterday, some complainants sounded like spoiled, whiny brats who think they are doing someone a favor by becoming iPhone owners.
In some ways, Apple yesterday became a victim of its own outstanding success. It seems anything less than 100% is regarded as failure where Apple is concerned.
Yesterday, success was anything but 100%. Horror of horrors! Even Apple was discovered to be stocked with normal, mistake-prone humans, and not immune to the breakdowns that occur when Internet channels get overloaded.
But Apple will learn from this experience, and do a better job next time.
Apple is like a rock star that has been making better and better records, and has become an international best-seller and celebrity. And then yesterday, it went out and gave its first stadium concert, and realized that it was not totally prepared for the huge crowds that turned up. And having to include a supporting act (AT&T) further complicated matters.
I expect that this experience will be a learning one, and maybe bring Apple to the realization that they are bigger than even they think they are.
Well, I am at 13 hours with NO phone service on my old phone or my new phone. I am a long time ATT/Cingular customer.
I am sure I am just one of the “whiners” for complaining, but all the fan-boys for the I-Phone actually have phone service. I suspect they would be whining too if they had no service for going on 12 hours.
Activated two phones in less than 10 minutes Sat a.m (in Chicago). The iTunes activation process is a breeze and very simple. It’s a pleasure to be able to do that without having to talk to some agent on the phone.
mdw: fear – the activation fears are unfounded
atlanta, 14 hours and waiting.
AT&T is exactly why there is a snowball’s chance in HELL that I’ll get an iPhone any time soon. They have never been anything but indifferent to customer service. They are the epitome of “the souless corporation.” No amount of apple cool can make up for AT&Ts; total lack of customer scruples.
So I get up this morning and check in here to see that the castrati chorus is still going at it. Nut sacks, ever last one of them.
I was just told that it will be 48 hours before most iPhones are up and running. I love my picture of earth.
going on 18 hours here with no activation…
One of you geniuses said, and this is a direct quote: “All new people to Apple and AT&T are saying this is the worst companies in the world.” Imagine that! Because of this! The *worst companies in the world*. Wow! How narcissistic. Not to mention the fact that I cannot imagine how the poster has the slightest clue as to what “all new people to Apple and AT&T” are actually thinking. Activation delays are not happening to *everyone*, probably not even to most, you sorry excuse for a human being.
I said it last night and I’ll say it again. Those of you who really think you have an “iBrick”, that you have a “useless piece of crap”, that it’s all Apple’s fault, and that they deliberately did this to you (because of “corporate evil” and other such hippie notions), then have the courage of your convictions and take your phone back for a full refund. Just end the misery already. Phone gone, no more waiting. Right? You apparently just cannot withstand such unimaginable pressure, SO END IT!
And those of you who are now complaining about the hours that you stood in line, excuse me, but you did that of your own free will and accord. And all because you just had to be “among the first”.
But just as you had to wait in the physical line on account of a lot of other people wanting to do the same thing at the same time, now you’re waiting in line again, only you just can’t see it. And again, it’s on account of a lot of people wanting to do the same thing at the same time.
You’re in a traffic jam, folks. Plain and simple. This is our world sometimes. That’s why my favorite time to drive anywhere is at 3:00 in the morning, when I can manage it, and is also why I won’t be buying the iPhone this weekend.
Look, if I had purchased an iPhone yesterday and had to wait until sometime today for it to be activated, would I be thrilled and jumping for joy? No. I would wish that it went off without a hitch. But I also wouldn’t be having a meltdown like some of you spoiled flowers. I wouldn’t be calling it an iBrick, in that the phone itself is *just fine* and merely awaiting activation. And I wouldn’t be “ready to hurl this piece of sh*t out the window”, as some of you have said. And I would certainly not consider this a “nightmare”. I’d simply leave it and wouldn’t obsess. I’d go see a movie. I’d get on with my life. And then I’d be happy when it is activated. God help some of you if you ever have a real problem in your life.
But like I said, just take your damn phones back and put your misery to an end, you spineless pussies. Go buy one of those good phones from one of the other companies. You know, the kind where activation will go smoothly because there aren’t many people that want that good non-iBrick of a phone. Go ahead. Do it. Your brains should be called iBlob, and your spines should be called iDon’tExist. Shit wits!
First we hope that all US citizens buy the damn thing….when it arrives we ALL want to activated it at the same time as fast as possible: seems like the mother of all contradictions.
MacB
@ Oops
Amen. Preach it brother.
Boulder: 12 hours and waiting (xfer from T-Mobile). Note that the email said it would be 24 hours. I’m not sure I believe it. I cannot believe that the iBrick doesn’t do sh*t without activation. No camera, no iPod, nada. Get ready to short Apple on Monday if they/AT&T can’t get folks activated. There’s really no excuse to have a useless device… although I can understand the number portability issues, I cannot fathom the uselessness of the device without activation.
MDN magic word: voice-less.
Heh.
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i was on the phone for an hour with AT&T to hear “wait 24 hours”
Leave it to AT&T to screw it all up. They iSUCK.
What a clusterf^&k.
Early adopters peace to all mankind and goodwill to all animals.
What you seek will come to you if you build it.
Patience is a virtue when all around you others loose their heads.
Don’t push it, Dont force it, let it happen naturally.
If all else fails, ebay it.
If ebay fails it, put it back into the packaging and store it in the loft or somewhere safe and watch the antique value rise up the graph.
If that fails as well, SEND IT TO ME! the following is my address.
Crabapple
1 flewthecuckoosnest
Yellow Brick Road
Pie In The Sky
NET BOT
NEWSFLASH: After deciding to call AT&T (877-800-3701) again… the help desk agent activated me by hand; it took 10 minutes hold + 10 minutes of her pushing buttons. While I still await number transfer, I got an email while on the phone:
Congratulations, AT&T is now transferring your existing mobile number to this iPhone.
Your iPhone may now make outgoing calls but will be unable to receive calls on your existing mobile number until the transfer is complete.
You will receive an email confirmation once your mobile number transfer is complete. If you have not done so already, please connect your iPhone to your computer now to complete this activation (or click here if your iPhone is already connected).
[she told me to turn OFF the phone and wait a minute, since she had “one more button” to press to activate the phone. Here goes… iTunes up… powering phone on…]
[it’s working!]
[off to sync-ville!]
For existing customers waiting hours for activation I would suggest getting a new iphone SIM card.
I waited 15 hours and after I changed the SIM, it activated in less than 2 minutes.
Here was my situation:
– I am an existing ATT customer, previously with cingular.
– I received a corporate discount but I have an individual account
– I chose to upgrade my existing 450 minute plan with
unlimited data access.
– Talked to several unknowledgeable people all night.
– Got confirmation that my account and plan were set up correctly throughout the night.
– Around 9am est, I got an ATT rep who mentioned issues with the BMG field. Apparently, mine was populated with “small business” and that needed to be removed before the activation would complete.
-Activation still wasn’t complete more than an hour later so I called and had the activation cancelled. However, the iphone never recognized the cancellation because I continued to get the need more time to activate screen.
– Continued to get the 24 hour activation time BS when I made repeat calls back.
– Finally decided to switch SIM cards with another unopened/unactivated iphone.
– When I hooked it up to my mac mini, I got the screens to do a new activation.
– Iphone activated in less than 2 minutes.
I think the keys were removing the BMG code and using a new SIM. I hope this helps someone else.
15 hours and still waiting to become activated. I talked to AT&T and they said that everything is in their system, its just overloaded right now so all I can do is wait. %$^@!!!!!! I hope this means they sold a lot of these things and the stock will rally on Monday. It is going to be worth the wait.
I was 3rd in line at my local apple store. I got the phone, brought it home, and activated it immediately. I am still waiting for my activation email nearly 22 hours later. My friends who were with me all were able to activate theirs in about 5 minutes. So all my friends have iPhones and I have an iBrick. AT&T says my Verizon number has been successfully ported, my account is open, my credit check passed, I am completely set, they are just waiting on Apple to unlock my phone. That’s great, but my Verizon phone now no longer works, and my iPhone does not yet work, so I have no phone at all.
No, you do not have in “iBrick”. You have an *iPhone* that has simply not been activated as of yet. From what I can gather, most people have had no problems with activation. Only a small, but whiny, minority.
It is unfair to call those waiting to be activated “whiney”. This phone has been hyped to hell and back. Jobs was especially proud of this new “activation system” of the future. The ATT and Apple reps and the activation system have been ill prepared to handle this even though Apple had hundreds of thousands of these iphones ready to sell. I have never had anything from apple that didn’t just work out the box. This is an embarrasment for Apple and I hope they learn from this. Had they not been so secretive with this phone and done a pilot with actual customers, they would have caught alot of these issues with account setups.
I would really like to know what world (or alternate universe or parallel dimension) so many people come from…where every mechinical contrivance works perfectly from the get go, and where simple errors, mistakes and mechanical and/or electronic failures never occur.
I’d like to move there.
I was in line at my local ATT store and got one right away. A friend of mine bought one too. I decided not to open my box and wait and see if everything went smoothly with his and to play with his some before I committed to the phone. He ran into activation issues and combined with all the news today about other having issue, I returned my phone..it was not a fun thing to do because I really wanted it but I wasn’t happy with the ATT service from the start. My friend was lied too over and over during his 4 calls to ATT today and I was lied to when I returned the phone, the rep said they activated several people in the store and it went fine…I didn’t say anything but I wanted to slap him silly…customers activate at home on their PC/Mac. For over $500 on a new toy I wasn’t 100% satisfied and I wasn’t about to lock into this disappointment for 2 years. Sorry Apple I love you and this great product, but ATT ruined it all for me.
@ oops
could not have said it better
@Bassetbob
congrats, It does seem that ATT is really working hard to fix things,
sitting here in Mexico, I really wish I could have an iPhone in front of me, even if I had to wait awhile for activation
Has anyone heard what numbers were sold last night??
@hotinplaya – a favorite place… got married there in a Mayan death pit, er, Cenote’, been there 8 times. Have a latte at Joe’s on me!
To those who-say-whine: Piss off. There are two SERIOUS problems with the launch. 1) Activation was screwed up. You can make an argument that “tech has issues” especially at launch, especially of this magnitude. We Apple fans like to think they do better. But not in this case. 2) You can’t DO ANYTHING with an unactivated phone. Just flat out stupid, wrong and treats customers like thieves (greed is the cause? Fear that some will not activate and tithe to the death star for 2 years is my guess).
Good luck to those that haven’t activated. Try what I did: Call and make an announcement that a return of the phone may have to occur, then ask to be manually activated. Be polite (but firm).
MDN: training: Activation and feature lock-out needs more training.
@Bassetbob
I agree on your points, they should have seen it coming, ( I made 3 post last week) about the melt down last Christmas with iPods, and they probably did see it, and had no choice except limit the number of iPhones sold.
on another point, you hit it on the nose, we live in Playa Del Carmen, go to Joe’s once and a while, but prefer the Beer Bucket across the street! next time in Playa, try Chicago’s, best restaurant in town!!
have included my email, wife and I would love to play with your iPhone next time you are in Playa!!, buy you a drink!!
One more thing: AT&T does seem to have sent the msg that customers *must* get activated by the support reps. The first one I talked to last night was giggly and confused. Today went much better.
@hotinplaya… after a few minutes of sitting and watching an unactivated phone do nothing, you might rethink your wish! As to numbers, I’ve seen estimates all over the map… from 200K up to 500K (for the whole weekend). I’m guessing Apple gets slammed, stock wise, on Monday… they can’t hope to meet irrational exuberance, and the activation nightmare will compound things. The real story answer is months out.
MDN: instead of activation troubles, I surf, sync, and enjoy. It really is quite a sweet device. *if* you can use it!
Is anyone really surprised by this? Let go of $600.00, just to get a nice-looking paperweight? A device locked into AT&Ts; craptacular EDGE network, instead of 3G, an utterly unusable on-screen keyboard, a sad 4-to-8 gig (or whatever it is, under 10) storage capacity?
And to top it all off, you can’t even ATTEMPT to use the poorly implemented “features”, because, oh yeah, it’s a brick.
Thing is, REAL bricks are more useful. You can make sidewalks out of ’em.
I was one of the original people to call this an iBrick, and I am glad I kept up my persistance and bugged the heck out of the AT&T call center. If you tell them your problem now, they can activate you and work through MOST of the problems online. If I had not called, the woman I worked with was certain that nothing would have happened … I would have blown past the 24 hrs .. the 36 hours, etc with no feature activation or anything. So call it what you may, but the only way it seems to fix the delay for some of us is to be a squeeky wheel. Ask the AT&T people if your account is showing as being “on hold”. If it is, make them work through the problems. I was on the phone with the call center for about 1.5 hours while we worked through all the problems. They said I had major 2 issues. They tried to add the “NMV1” package to my phone, which is the standard AT&T multimedia package, but that fails for the iPhone because those features are built in and don’t require that addition. Second, I entered into iTunes a Verizon account number as shown on my bill, which includes extraneous digits. I gave them the #########-00001 account number, but they only needed the ######### part (first 9 digits). That also caused the activation to go into eternal limbo land. So with a lot of back tracking, etc, we worked through it.
The iPhone is an AWESOME piece of hardware. Yay Apple – 5 stars. AT&T will get 2 stars until they earn the rest in the future … but they are trending up. They were at 0 stars up until 10 minutes ago for all the misinformation they were spreading (they said it was Apple that was actually activating the phone and not them, etc).
Hang tough and call 1-877-800-3701 and be polite and don’t hang up until you get the email from them!
MW “had”, as in I HAD a major problem, and it is gone now.
Yeah, that’s real fair. Call people who lost their phone service or who have been waiting to activate a phone for 14+ hours “whiners”.
Again, I’d like to see how any of those name-callers would have behaved if they had to wait that long after they fully paid for their last mobile phone which was NOT made by Apple. Yeah, sure, they would have been just fine about it. It’s like people should have no expectation of performance because the poor vendor is overwhelmed. I bet you if you were buying something from Microsoft you wouldn’t be so “understanding”.
I know someone who has lost her only phone service for several hours now. Why? Because she saw a new phone advertised and she bought it. Of course people like Abdullah here are telling us to suck it up and don’t be whiners.
Blind defense of your beloved brand makes you look stupid. Call things as they are.
Hehehe, poor Jedi Master. He can’t afford an iPhone but deep down really really wants one. So now he tries to console himself by making shit up. What a pathetic loser.
New To Mac wrote:
“Again, I’d like to see how any of those name-callers would have behaved if they had to wait that long after they fully paid for their last mobile phone which was NOT made by Apple. Yeah, sure, they would have been just fine about it. It’s like people should have no expectation of performance because the poor vendor is overwhelmed. I bet you if you were buying something from Microsoft you wouldn’t be so “understanding.”
___________________________________________
Firstly, I betcha I wouldn’t be buying *anything* from Microsoft, unless I were stupid and/or a glutton for punishment. Secondly, I already told you how I would’ve responed if I had purchased an iPhone yesterday. (Read my post above.)
And yes, I know *exactly* how I would’ve responded, because I know myself very well and I exercise control. I don’t allow myself to get tossed about in the wind. In other words, I wouldn’t respond like a loser. I know the difference between a *real problem* and an inconsequential inconvenience. It’s an easy distinction to make, in that those two things are worlds apart. It’s one thing to be mildly annoyed, and an entirely different thing to be falling apart at the seams.
So again, you are whiners. You are pussies. You are weak of mind and constitution. You are controlled by your circumstances. And you will never amount to anything in this life because you’ll turn the slightest thing into a friggin’ crisis of epic proportions. And I don’t care if you think I’m being “fair” to you or not. I’m being *accurate*, and that’s all that matters.
23 Hours and counting. AT&T doesn’t know what’s going on
@New To Mac
My sympathies for your friend and others who have had to wait. Like I said in my previous post, if I had waited in line for days, I too would have expected my device to work without giving me too many problems.
And now that the dust is clearing, it seems the success rate actually must have been pretty good in getting the devices activated – no major news outlet has made a big issue about it..
But clearly, some of the complainants – and if you read my post carefully, you will find the word “some” there – are bullsh–g. It is easy to separate the genuine buyers from those out to jump on the bandwagon. You can see the fakers from a mile away – their “hours-waiting” running ticker is padded with all sorts of anti-Apple diatribes that are really irrelevant to the issue here.
My point really was that sometimes, it is better to be sensible, count to 10, take a break and come back later when the traffic has cleared. Why keep beating your head against a brick wall?
By the way, it sounds like you personally were not one of the iPhone buyers.
@Oops
Dude, get a grip. I didn’t turn this into a major crisis. My life went on as I waited for my phone to activate. Posting here is only a small slice of my life. Read my posts and tell me where in them did it sound like this was a major life crisis. If you think that you shouldn’t complain and point out problems when you pay and don’t get the expected service, suit yourself. About being fair, tell me, what is the normal, expected wait time to activate a new phone in 2007?
@Abdullah
Thanks for the clarification and I appreciate the distinction between the actual users and the trolls. I am actually a buyer (see my earlier posts). My phone got activated after 9 hours (a magnificent piece of engineering in hardware and software). But my friend still waits. She had to activate get a Vonage soft phone line while she waits so that she’s not without a phone. However people cannot call her because they don’t know that number. She is NOT transferring a number.
And as I said earlier to the accusers of whining: Do you think Apple is happy with this? Of course not. Then why should we be happy? I know this syndrome very well. It exists in every fan-based message board. I used to practice it in my younger years (then Palm could do no wrong). Drop it. They all do sometimes and we need to call them on it. You can go and read all I wrote here, nothing inflammatory… just stating the fact that such activation times are not acceptable
i have been iwaiting for iactivation for 23 ihours! I started the activation Fri night at 7pm and it is now 7pm on Sat….. I am getting imad here… AND I am already an AT&T customer!
@Oops
I was the last Castrato.
I’m anxious but also a little relieved that I’m not the only one who’s having a problem activating.
Last night, I was frantic when it said that I needed to get an AT&T credit pre-approval and to do that I have to go to the nearest AT&T.
I did so this morning and got the code, but that still didn’t work. Finally, I decided to try the activation again and I received a message that it’ll take a while and that they’ll send me an e-mail. It’s been about 3 hours since then.
My life doesn’t revolve around the iPhone, but the wait has been VERY LONG (I’ve been dreaming of a device like the iPhone ever since the first iPod came out) and therefore I’m a little anxious.
If you have been waiting for 8 or 10 or even 20 hours or more with your little apple white umbilical cord faithfully plugged in, you could be waiting forever. Try unlugging and turning off your iPhone and rebooting your PC or Mac. While you do that take the sim out of your dead iPhone and put it in your old phone that you upgraded from, assuming you came from a GSM carrier, if it works, stop blaming AT&T. The problem is that Mr. Jobs wanted to control the activation process to the point of having you upgrade your iTunes and use this electronic jukebox to try and be a cellular provisioning device, which it is failing miserably. Many of you are naturally blaming AT&T because you can’t use your brand new iPhone, but Steve locked up the device and also controls the final unlocking via your iTunes, chances are 80% or better that your account is set up on AT&T already and you are waiting on Apple to get caught up and send the unlock to your iPhone. Those of you that ported in through WLNP (Wireless Number Portability) are at the mercy of your old provider to release you, AT&T has to get approval from them that you have paid your bills with them before they can activate you, this by law. This can take up to 24 hours anytime sometimes more. Have a glass of wine and relax, people are blowing up airports in England and you Apple people are between suicide and homicide over a iPhone.
Going on 25 HOURS!!!!! NO ACTIVATION YET!!!!!
A song of sorrow for people with iPhone problems sung by Alessandro Moreschi (The Last Castrato), 1904
Don’t like the way I sound? It’s probably because I had my balls cut off! (HISTORICALLY TRUE!)
Waited in line at my local AT&T store Friday night (83 E. Colorado, Pasadena, CA). They ran out of phones just when I got to the door, despite their having previously counted the line and assured me (and the many prople in line behind me) that they had enough. Went to the nearby Apple store, where the line moved a whole lot faster, and got my iPhone in 30 minutes. Took it home, but the activation program said I needed to go to an AT&T store for credit approval (despite the fact that my credit rating is the highest and I use my credit cards anywhere else with no problem). Went back to the AT&T store Saturday morning and the guy wrote down a a Pre Approval number for me. Went back home and found that the number didn’t work. (Not even the correct number of digits.) Made another trip back to the AT&T store, got another approval number (this one printed out on the register receipt). I now find that this number doesn’t work either — “unable to verify your credit preauthorization code.” I’ll survive, but can there be any doubt about the fact that AT&T doesn’t have it’s act together?
I hope folks have chilled a little. Given the tens of thousands of iPhone that were sold in the first few hours, there were bound to be some activation issues. This is something that you could not stress test until you truly went live…and yes, I did sit/stand in line since 6:00 am..so I do know how anxious folks are.
I had one hiccup will activating. iTunes said AT&T would send me an SMS message when it was activated. I had planned to let the iPhone get a good charge so had it in the dock. Looked up about 2 minutes after the iTunes message and the SMS from AT&T had arrived. The whole process to activate AND sync at a little after 7:00 pm Central took less than 10 minutes.
I know some folks had issues. Wonder if they had not downloaded and installed 7.3 before attempting the activation.
On the good side, I have been out all day today pushing the iPhone. Wanted to see what it would be like on a day I was away from the MBP for most of the day.
A couple of observations:
– I found accessible Wi-Fi in more places that I frequent than I thought.
– Keyboarding on the new virtual keyboard is easier than I thought it would be. I’ve been on a Blackberry for 17 months and while I am not 2-thumb typing, I am getting faster and more accurate.
– The biggest and most pleasant surprise was finding EDGE working better than I thought. I was at several location reading emails. No Wi-Fi was connected. I clicked links in the emails popping Safari. The page loads, with some pretty heavy page weights, were averaging 35-45 seconds, the longest was right at 60 seconds. I was able to pinch and move around the page easily. Best yet, it was very easy and straight-forward to add comments to some of the Blogs.
I know those who hit hiccups or roadblocks as the evening progressed are mad or disheartened. I also think the numbers in the category are relatively low given what was happening at iTunes and AT&T. They probably won’t have a rush like this again. This is no iBrick…if people think so, they need to get a life and learn to chill.
I was so psyched when I was walking out of that Apple Store with my creaseless bag and $600 toy. All of that turned to frustration as soon as I hit the power button. “Sim Card not installed” was all my iphone was telling me… After some google searching I found out where the sim tray was and how to open it. Luckily the card was just loose. Okay… tragedy narrowly averted… just some ageda. Now I’m stuck in an activation wait and it sucks.
I can’t remember the last time I spent $600 on a luxury item and was treated so badly as a consumer.
Hey it’s T plus 24 hours and counting for me. I purchased my iphone after standing in line in the central time zone. Tried to activate and switch carriers and am still waiting. Just for reference I purchased my iphone about 7:30 on Friday went home a began the activation process (which was simple) and it is now 8:18 and I am still getting the friendly message “Your activation requires additional time to complete”. You would think someone could send out a quick mass email or post a message with eta (estimated time of activation) or something. Proud to have the iphone but would like to know when I can begin to use it! Thanks MDN for the FIRST explanation of what’s going on!
27 hours later and 15 minutes later i still have an iBrick. New line, new activation, no deposit needed, nobody … NOBODY has been able to help i only get the “you need to wait” statement.
lets go to 7 pages..
Im still waiting.. was told to wait 24 hours now its been 24 hours now they’re telling to wait another 48 hours before calling back!
I am going on 27 hours now with only minimal contact from ATT, I am a current att customer. come on this is truly getting stupid.
I was patient for 26 hours, tommorow morning, all hell will break loose.
24+ hours later and still no activation. Not a port, just a phone change with AT&T. AT&T customer support points to Apple, Apple points to AT&T. I was considering switching from a PC to a Mac, now I won’t. The iBrick hits the Apple bottom line.
I heard some rumor wireless service providers are not happy about lost so many customer , they make the transfer extremely slow in purpose .
I started activating mine at 2pm today… 9 hours and counting, makes an expensive paper weight!
Jesus Christ… why don’t people get this worked up when Windows doesn’t work like it’s supposed to?
almost 24 hours now and counting and no activation. About a dozen calls with AT&T and with them checking with Apple and still no resolution. The joy is gone.
not much of a SMALL delay.. ive been waiting over 26 hours now for activation
Going onto my 27th hour, transferring from sprint. Ugh! I’d like to think it’s all at&t’s fault, as I waited in a long line at their store, only to have them run out. I then walked 3/4 of a mile to the apple store, and had it in my hands within 20 minutes. I sure hope the activation goes through soon.
I am typing this on my brand new iphone. Just got activated after 20 hours. It was more than worth the wait. This keyboard is so damn easy to use. All I can say to everyone is hang in there.
6-30-07; 5:15 pm, got it hooked up to my macbook, it’s already 12:30 am, still not activated, received to emails 1 from itunes and other one from att., they’re still processing my order..w. t. f.!!!
@ New To Mac:
I should have known you’d be too obtuse to get my point. I never said that *you* had turned it into a crisis, but what you *had* done was to defend the whiners. And what I merely did was to explain to you exactly why the whiners ought to be taken to task. Therefore, I had to point out their idiocy, in that it seems to have escaped you. Have you really not read some of the more absurd comments?
And now for about the third time I am having to explain that there is a difference between being annoyed about something that is, like it or not, a relatively inconsequential inconvenience that will heal itself, and something that is of a more monumental and lasting nature.
Did you really not read what I wrote? Go back and read it again. I never said that if you’re having to wait, then you ought to click your heels and jump for joy because of it. Nor did I say there was anything wrong with relaying that you were having activation problems. But if you’ll go through this thread and others on this subject, you *will* in fact see many people treating this as if it’s a major life crisis. People are having meltdowns over this. People who were popping a boner standing in line waiting for this thing, and then several hours later saying that “the iPhone is overrated”. People saying that they’re about ready to “hurl this thing against the wall”. People that are acting like Apple and AT&T just didn’t anticipate this response and didn’t plan for it and just don’t care, blah blah blah.
What do you not know about life? Things just go wrong sometimes. Even with lots of planning. Companies are run by humans like us. And just as we as individuals get things wrong sometimes, so do those companies. But this is a momentary glitch. It’s a pretty complex thing to do I would imagine. Has any carrier even had to activate this many people in such an instantaneous period of time? Nope. It’s a first. That means something. Hello?
But why do I keep going on when it is clear that you and people like you can’t seem to comprehend what I’m saying. I am reminded of a kid standing next to me at the Apple store today. I was taking an iPhone through its paces, and he was doing the same next to me. But since the keyboard wasn’t as easy to type on as the one on his computer at home, it was, “This thing sucks!”. And since web pages didn’t load as quickly on it as they did on his computer at home, again, it was, “This thing sucks!” He was all of about 12 years old, and already the world owed him so friggin’ much. And his useless Mom didn’t do anything about his attitude. He ought to be sent to Bangladesh for a year and see how other kids his age are living. Get some f**king perspective. Future whiner of America, that kid. He’d be at home here. iBrick, indeed.
if you have an iBrick, try this it worked for me.
simple sim card swap.
if you have to iBricks swap the cards between the phone and try to activate again.
read the post at the link below for more important details.
http://terminalobservations.com/index.cfm?frmid=4
Decided to buy an iPhone Sat night instead of waiting. The reviews were just too good. Got home at about 9:30EST- I’m switching from Verizon so I’m expecting the worst after reading all the posts. Anyway- after taking my own unboxing pics- I connected my new iPhone- Fired up iTunes which I already updated before I went to the Apple store. I was activated after about 10 minutes but of course- I can only make calls- my old Verizon phone is still answering them… It’s been over 3 hours- hopefully when I wake up- I’ll be ready to go- This thing is a work of art. Still getting used to the keyboard but it’ll come. – The Web browsing is great. Glad I didn’t wait.
Good luck everybody- be patient- in my case- it’s a Verizon issue- AT&T & of course Apple did their part.
still waiting, 30+ hours. nobody knows what is going on at either company. the most incompetent launch by two billion dollar companies, EVER!
Success at the 24 hour mark! Thank you Jason tonight and Lisa earlier today at AT&T. It was worth the wait on the activation line as Jason was able to get the phone activated. Summary of the experience – the delay was caused because my phone has a business discount applied to it even though it wasn’t a business phone and that needed to be corrected first even though it looked like that had been changed when going thru the iTunes activation screens. Most of the effort was getting to that point and I have to say that most of the half-dozen or so AT&T (and the Apple techs they contacted) reps were helpful considering the overwhelming wave of people they’ve had come their way. They have now experienced the Apple effect
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” /> For those still waiting, I have to say it is VERY worth it so hang in there. I was losing the joy but the phone is just as glorious as I pictured it would be and it is truly a work of art. You can definitely see where things will be changed and added over time but for now, this is definitely the best phone out there on the user interface alone.
I bought my iPhone on Saturday, the second day it’s being sold, activated the account at 9:30pm and it is now 2:40am and still nothing. Over 5 hours so far. I am porting my verizon number (which I’m still part of a two year plan with) into a new at&t account and is part of a family plan, second line. I guess that’s what the hold up is.
Anywho, whoever said they will have it all figured out the next day was wrong. It’s late in the next day, technically early morning the third day and things are still ridiculous.
Got mine around noon PDT-still waiting to activate 12 hours later. Was already an AT&T customer…le sigh!
can a attws exising customer activate an iphone on itunes
Check the link below , somebody figure out where the issue is and how to fix it. it may work for you .
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/14131/
Waiting for my second to activate. It’s 6:30am EST on a Sunday Morning, AT&T just told me I will have to wait up to an additional 48 hours for activation. This is going to be the headline on Monday morning: “Hello….oops no answer, no signal”
To understand why there are activation problems, please read this thread:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1019323
Switching from T-Mobile in New York, so far its been 12 hours, I should have just got a new number!
14 hours +, and not yet activated. But non-ATT customers got activated in front of me right after purchase.
iBrick holder
13 hours and counting… the last person I spoke with said that it was my fault for not calling Nextel and telling them to release the phone number for porting. Um, where does it say that the customer has to do that?!?
Truly no bitterness here, but at 35 hours and counting this is getting a bit tiresome. I don’t care to blame either AT&T or Apple, I just wish they would get the kink worked out and activate my phone. The best part is yet to come.
36 hours and still being given the run around. Now they say they have to wait for credit check information. Seems like more BS to me. Not to be a whiner, but this truly sucks!!
Waiting since activation e-mail at 7:54 PM EDT on Friday. After 24 hours (last night), I figured it should be done. 43.5 hours later and I’m still waiting. Current carrier hasn’t rec’d porting request. ATT says Apple hasn’t sent any info yet. Now getting peeved. Been on the phone with Apple for 40 min now. ALWAYS had phenomenal experiences with Apple in the past. I understand ATT’s requirement that all features are locked until activation begins, but I’m getting pretty frustrated with my shiny new $600 paperweight.
“And now for about the third time I am having to explain that there is a difference between being annoyed about something that is, like it or not, a relatively inconsequential inconvenience that will heal itself, and something that is of a more monumental and lasting nature.”
Still enjoying that hammer handle?
It’s been over 35 hours (11pm Friday night EST) and counting for me. I’ve been on the phone with ATT support and they said that it should take about 24 hours. I am a current ATT subscriber. My phone line has been disconnected since yesterday morning.
I’ve received two separate activation emails. Nothing. Getting quite fed up with ATT’s systems and service sucking so bad.
I was out of the store at 6:20 and using the phone at 7:05 after a 30 minute drive home.
just got off the phone with apple (after calling AT&T two times this morning and them telling me “its all ‘apple’s fault’ call 1-800-my-apple”) and both reps I talked to at apple said that the severs are down and should get all the activating fix mid-week. then i said “can I return my iPhone and not have to pay the restocking fee since I cant use it” “sorry sir if it’s open with have to change the 10% restocking fee”
PS all four reps(two from apple and two from at&t) said that they werent expecting to sell 1 million iPhone’s
I bough my Ibrick yesterday at 1 pm, 21hrs later and no activation. I am a current at&t customer too so I say WTF!. On hold with At&T activation support now and I expect another 21hr delay for them to answer the gd phone.
@Oops:
A few pages back, below a quote of what I said, you said:
So again, you are whiners. You are pussies. You are weak of mind and constitution. You are controlled by your circumstances. And you will never amount to anything in this life because you'll turn the slightest thing into a friggin' crisis of epic proportions. And I don't care if you think I'm being "fair" to you or not. I'm being *accurate*, and that's all that matters.
While this does not contain my name, it is hard to walk away from it not thinking that you’ve considered me part of this group. Now you come back after I pointed out your ridiculous position and try to say that you’ve never said that I was part of that group. Nice try. And you call me obtuse?
PS: The MDN Magic Word I had to enter is “enough”, which sounds very appropriate for this silly side discussion.
iPhone bought, travelled home, and activated on an existing AT&T family plan within 30 minutes on Saturday morning.
Whilst there appears to be a lot of people having problems, how many activated their iPhones with no issues? We’ll probably never know what the real percentages were.
Friday night, 9pm EST, I sent my original activation request, waited through 6 minute activation message, then it said “your number requires 24 hours to activate.” Fine.
3am Saturday I get an email stating my number cannot be transferred so I call AT&T and they tell me it’s because my billing address is in NY and my area code is in FL, so I change my billing address to my FL address and retry activation at 2pm Saturday. Again, waited through 6-minute activation attempt and again it says it needs 24 hours to activate.
Now it’s Sunday at 3:30 (25.5 hours) and still no email from AT&T confirming my activation.
Just my experience. Transferring number from Sprint.
I purchased my IPhone on Friday night from Apple Store after waiting 3 hours in line at the ATT store. ATT ran out of the 8Gb phone so I jumped in a cab went to the Apple store at Stockton and Market and only waited for 15 minutes. The guys at Apple really have their act in order. But activation is not happening. Yesterday at 1:15PM, I went into ITunes to add a new line to my existing at&t account and activate my phone. The system told me they needed more time to activate my account and that at&t would email me when they were finished setting up my account. It is now almost 24 hours later and I am still waiting for the confirmation email. at&t is closed for the weekend and so I am stuck with a very expensive piece of jewlery that does nothing but let me dial 911.
Approaching 45 hours waiting. Was home with an iPhone by 6:30 PM EST. Started activation. I have the master number on a family plan. All that I needed to do was add the date plan. Every time I call AT&T they quote more time need. Now they are quoting 48 hours. My old sim was disabled when I started activation. So now I am without a cell phone for 2 days. I only hope tomorrow is the day!
How could this have not been anticipated by AT&T?
Had to go through 3 different Apple reps before being told that I could expect to wait up to 30 hours for activation. The guy, who had a distinctly Canadian accent, didn’t seem like the typical Apple tech dude and was downright snippy when I said that Apple’s own FAQs — were basically a boldfaced lie. I have a good mind to return this device and I’m one of the crazies that waited in line all day Friday.
To those who are activated:
How many emails did you receive before you actually activated? I got one from itunes an hour after attempting activation. AT&T then sent two (12 hours apart) that stated, “We are attempting to process your order.” I just received another from AT&T explaining how to access my bill online.
Just wondering if I am getting close or if everyone got these same messages.
NEWSFLASH!!
ALL CARRIERS ARE THE DEVIL!
What, are you all on crack? Asleep for the last decade?
Sprint, Verizon, T-mobile, etc. -they suck. They have ALWAYS sucked. Sucking is what they do. They are clueless at best, predatory and venemous at worst.
DEAL WITH IT! Their incompetence should NOT come as any sort of a surprise….
If they were typically competent, then I could understand the amazement at the wait time…. But they have never been competent except at charging fees for crappy services….
I have owned cell phones from several companies. As much as the phones sucked, the companies sucked several times worse…
Enjoy your great phones from a typical uncaring super-carrier.
But please, don’t act like you’ve never seen such stupidity before. YOU HAVE SEEN IT EVERY DAY OF YOUR LIFE!!
Well- I’m now able to receive & make calls with my new iPhone.
The entire activation process took 21 hours.
It turned out- at least in my case- that AT&Ts; “porting team” is overwelmed- i.e. NOT PREPARED. I’m transferring from Verizon but they released the number right away- in fact it’s automatic as soon as you are approved by – u guessed it AT&T.
Anyway fellow iPhoners– be patient
Oh- i did call AT&T this morn- I was nice to them- I asked her to check on the status of my “port”- at first she was reluctant- then she actually called a member of the porting team for me- and they gave me the EXACT time my phone would be ready to receive calls- she said 7:11pmEST- ??? well- she was right- at 7:13EST I got an SMS message on my iPhone- at that point- I powered off my old phone and the iPhone and then turned the iPhone back on and made a test call from from office landline- I’m in business.
Good luck everybody- the phone is EVERYTHING and more.
“the phone is EVERYTHING and more.”
Probably true if Everything to you = iPod and More = cellphone.
Call AT&T at 1-877-800-3701. They set up a sepcial activation line. After 30 hours of no activation, I called this number and Peter had me set up in less than 10 minutes!
I just waited 1 day for activation – although not anticipated, not terrible — and it’s now activated and working perfectly!!!!
What’s this crap about Universal Music Group?
There is a helpful post at Apple’s discussions from an AT&T employee explaining what has caused a lot of the activation difficulties for some people.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1019323&start=0&tstart=15
“There is a helpful post at Apple’s discussions from an AT&T employee explaining what has caused a lot of the activation difficulties for some people.”
Except it sounds like complete BS. Part of the problem maybe, but most people’s activations seem to be going off the rails long before they actually try the over the air activation.
you people are all fools for buying such a stupid phone. think about how bad you got stiffed! $600+ for you junky phone (oh and dont drop it!) then $100/month forever! Add it up. Probably over $3000 over the next 2 years. SUCKERS!
Slink: Not everyone is poor. And a few people might not even care what you think. It’s possible.
“… 600+ for you junky phone (oh and dont drop it!) then $100/month forever! …”
Check this out if you can handle it. Have mommy do it for you if you can’t.
http://www.pcworld.com/video/id,545-page,1-bid,0/video.html
this is REDICULOUS, I have never had to wait this long to switch companies or transfer phone numbers. I have heard people waiting for 2 hours, 18 hours, 24, and 44… i have been waiting for FIFTY NINE (59) hours since 11 pm on friday night in NYC and i dont wanna wait any longerrrr =( this thing is completely useless. I’m using it as a paperweight (or rather paperwait) I’ve called customer service 6 times, waiting an hour each time. i’ve been hung up on/disconnected 3 times and they never call back after. ive been told that someone is working on my activation, and this has been the message since yesterday. it is not POSSIBLE for one person to be handling my order for 24 hours continuously. every customer service rep says they can’t do anything about it cus someone else is activating it right now. but theyre really not i guess. BS! i want my iPhone! =/
Took me 31 hours to activate. It sucked, but I lived for 39 years without one, and once it came to life, well…
I’ll just say this: I’ve already mostly forgotten the activation delay. That WON’T be what I talk about when I look back to my first taste of the iPhone. What a great product.
It took me 18 hours to activate, then when it did it took me another 24 hours to correct the voice mail problem that AT&T accidentally disconnected. Let’s all agree that AT&T is solely responsible for this. They had 6 months to prepare their infrastructure, train their customer reps, beef up theri online system, computer mainframes and so on. They blew it! No question about it. Stephenson should come on tv to publicly apologize to the customers with issues and give a 1 month credit for all of the hassles. The funniest part is that whenever you get thru to AT&T the first thing they say is that it is an Apple issue. This could not be further from the truth. My phone is wonderful, not ground breaking as other phones could do some of the same features, this does it better and more esthetically pleasing.
Eight pages has to be a record.
I think it’s unacceptable that non-phone related functions remain disabled until an AT&T account is established. The iBrick moniker is totally apt.
Yana, this is REDICULOUS
It also might be Ridiculous.
yes i realize this. its just that i get the same result whenever i call therefore it is re-diculous. =P
Looking for a pathetic loser? Look no further than Rajiv. I dunno… maybe the guy does indeed have the money for an iPhone. The fact that he’d rather blow it on a device that does what phones have been doing since 1876.
…oh, wait. Add on a crappy browser, a network that’s about a decade behind the times, and no keyboard.
Hey, don’t let me stop you from flushing your money away.
ibrick??
This is perhaps the most successful product launch in last 5 years. Over half a million units (2.5 X the highest estimates) out and ALL of them are working within the day, and working better than anticipated (battery, etc)!
Yes, there were some people who had to wait a few hours for activation. When I first got my Treo a while back, the activation time was 24 hours.
I guess you need a story and the bad news always sells better than the good news. Who would want to read a story about a house, that was not on fire.
But seriously, ibrick?
IMO, you are a petty smug little loser.
Well, after a 23 hour wait, calls to boh AT&T and Apple, and an AT&T press release that said all the activation problems had been solved I finally got an e-mail. Only to frustrate further – it said my credit was not good enough for AT&T (despie being a Tmobile customer for 4 happy years with 3 phones). So I selected payasyougo, but now I am back in the cycle and have another wait for your another activation e-mail. This be more interesting since it never asked me for my credit card info.
So now I have called AT&T and since I do not have a phone number yet or order number I get routed to a were closed call back during normal hours message.
If this is a sample of the “new AT&T” – come morning I will return my iPhone and stick with the solid service I get with my Blackberry on Tmobile. Once Apple’s image is tarnished enough to break ties with AT&T, I will revisit the iPhone.
R2 say: “It must be a serious energy drain, just sucks all of that juicy hype right out of your system. It’s a terrible way to begin a relationship.”
Begin a relationship…with a phone? … That´s sick…really. Boy, go have a walk in the park, get a girlfriend, have a life…
Activation in two minutes. Nice.
No problem at all activating my iPhone and and switching from Verizon to ATT. Service seems equally good. The only problem I had was with e-mail, but the iPhone support pages provided the solution: some ISP’s block port 25, so you need to use a different port. E-mail works fine now.
Seems like what they said is accurate (at least as far as that is concerned). I’m waiting for my number to be transfered, but the phone was still activated. I the meantime, I can make calls (not just emergency calls) and use all the other iphone features. but incomming calls still go to my old phone. The only annoying thing so far is that it’s been much longer than the quoted 6 hours and incomming calls are still going to the other phone. Hopefully that will resolve itself without me having to call them…
good!
chargerplates
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