“Many eager U.S. buyers of Apple Inc’s new iPhone left stores on Friday frustrated because their new gadgets did not work due to problems activating service,” Reuters reports.
“A spokesman for AT&T Inc, the sole U.S. carrier for the iPhone, blamed problems synchronizing the phone with Apple’s iTunes online music and software store. Apple representatives had no immediate comment,” Reuters reports.
Reuters reports, “AT&T spokesman Michael Coe said Apple was working to resolve the problem but declined to give a timeframe. ‘That’s a good question for Apple,’ Coe said.”
“Earlier in the day, many customers had left New York stores pleased that it had taken only 15 minutes to activate their new iPhones, which combines a music and video player, cellphone and Web browser,” Reuters reports. “But by mid-afternoon, many were annoyed.”
Full article here.
Because by mid-afternoon in New York, the west coast had come online and bogged down the servers, that’s why. We understand the frustration; after all, ’twas us who first screamed “iBrick!” last year over activation delays. One year wiser, we advise, “patience, padawans.” In fact, we just registered an iPhone 3G via iTunes within the last 5 minutes — from our office, not in-store, like the good old days! Now, the fact that the same thing happened last year, well, naturally, that might lead some to ask, what, if anything, did Apple learn from that fiasco?
If this happened to Microsoft, you’d all be laughing and criticizing Microsoft for not coping with the demand.
Not laughing now, are you?
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What a motherfscking shitshow.
I love ANARCHY!!!!
anyways- whatevers.
I blame Akamai.
@JAYGEE
There would never be this much demand for anything that Microsoft made anyway. So no, we’re not laughing……….we’re in awe of the magnitude.
Hey Jaygee
We’re all laughing at you!
Ha ha!
would it have really killed apple to release the 2.0 software on wednesday, mobile me on thursday and the new iphone on friday to avoid these delays? all i want is my $100 mobileme contacts and calendars to work! help me google!
This is stupid, Apple should have done a much better job. They knew that at least 8 million people had iPhones already and would be looking to upgrade to the 2.0 software ASAP. Then with the influx of new purchases, it only would add to the server issues. In this day and age, to blame servers for poor customer service is reprehensible. No excuse. Get it right, Apple. You created the demand..!
This is inexcusable. I would love to gripe about this on my .mac/me blog but I can’t even post to that server. This is a lose/lose. I lost $200 dollars and I cant use any of the services. Apple needs to fix this immediately not excuses. Like it or not Apple has dropped the ball and they must be held accountable. iBrick the Sequel.
With 22 countries coming online was it realistic to expect that servers wouldn’t be overloaded. My birthday is tomorrow, but I’ll get my present when the rush is over.
Interestingly, by moving my family from Verizon to AT&T;I get the same service plus a data plan for myself at the same cost.
Life is good if you take the time to put it into a realistic perspective. Expectations can wear you out with nothing to show for all the stress.
What freaks me out is that there’s no communication from Apple about what happened–clearly iPhone activation servers don’t control MobileMe or the downloading of firmware updates or regular songs from iTunes–or, above all, *when* all of this will be fixed. When someone doesn’t communicate with you at all, it’s hard not to start to resent them.
took me about two hours to activate my new iPhone this morning. But now it’s done and working just fine.
I do love Apple, and I do love my new software on the iPhone. I am typing this on it after all. But I agree, you do wonder if they learned anything from last years demand.
What the next major product roll out will bring is anyones guess, but with Apples growing popularity, I hope this doesn’t become a trend…..
Phil Gramm is right. What a bunch of Whiners. What is the big rush day one. What did you expect with all the hype? Take a deep breath and relax folks, within a week all will be well. Many folks here act like two year olds.
@ jg2000 – There would never be this much demand for anything that Microsoft made anyway.
Correct, but are you saying you wouldn’t laugh at Microsoft?
Tanya Turner – We’re all laughing at you!
Ha ha!
Thanks 😀
Patience is required here. The servers just get too busy. I too got the “unknown error” message. I just left iTunes running and the iPhone plugged in. Appearantly iTunes kept pinging the server and as soon as it made the connection, the activation process continued right where it left off. My 1G iPhone is fully operational on v2.0.
My phone upgrade just worked this time when I tried, so perhaps the problem is corrected.
The word clusterfsck has a new example.
This news is bad for people buying iPhone 3G on the first day it is out. However, for the Apple investors, this is a good news. Have you ever heard Palm, Blackberry or Microsoft having problem like this on the day their new phone model came out? They never had so many people trying to activate their phone on same day.
All is going as planned. It just proves that demand is over the top and it will generate a ton of news. In a day or two the problems will be fixed and quickly forgotten, but the buzz on sales will go on.
Apple loves free advertising.
And people thought the ‘no-new-features-just-performance-enhancement’ company line about Snow Leopard was a joke or a lack of ideas? Apple is gearing up to take over. To do it they need to get the Apple Cloud running on XServe perfectly soon (you don’t think Jobs wants to always rely on some Linux farm down the road, do you?). All this phase is just growing pains, and a big real world R&D;. May be that’s why Apple did not want to do worldwide release at the same time and instead opt for the natural hourly incremental increase. Too bad some of us just happen to live in the West Coast. Hey at least the Hawaiian buyers will know to get their patience ready. It’s Aloha day man, take it easy.
Bet on Jobs to crack the whip over this weekend.
@JAYGEE
oh, of COURSE I would be laughing at Micro$oft, no question. Laughing so much I might pee my pants a little.
Well, here in Spain, the problem isnt about system overload as you can only by the things in ONE FRACKING STORE IN THE WHOLE COUNTRY, TALK ABOUT FAILING TO MEET EXPECTATIONS.
APPLE FRACKED UP!!
This is exactly the sort of “problem” that Apple masterfully turns into a great FREE marketing opportunity. The story is everywhere about how the massive demand has crushed their servers. This will only help to increase the hype. Sheer brilliance.
MDN,
It doesn’t matter what they learned from last go ’round. The company who previously ran the activation process was canned by Apple/AT&T;and this new activation process was relatively unproven. (and now shown to be faulty)
Yes, it will all be back in due time. I’ll be waiting “2 to 7 days” for my wife’s 16GB White iPhone now after paying for a vaporPhone at the AT&T;store just 30 minutes ago.
I want my 2.0 update. I want it now. My life depends on it. I am not accustomed to waiting for what I want.. seriously.