“The activation ordeal that many iPhone 3G buyers went through earlier Friday seemed to be over as the day ended on the East Coast of the U.S.,” Stephen Lawson reports for IDG News Service.
“People buying the hotly anticipated handsets in New York and San Francisco on Friday morning had to wait longer than expected to get them working, after even worse problems in London caused Apple to close its main store there early. But at just after 5 p.m., customers leaving an Apple store in New York’s Soho district said activation had gone quickly and smoothly, as did some customers on the West Coast,” Lawson reports.
“Apple and its U.S. carrier partner, AT&T, had planned to complete all activations inside their stores. To get their phones working, customers have to set up a two-year contract with AT&T and synchronize the new phone with Apple’s iTunes site. But because of sluggish performance on the site, the companies split up those steps and told owners of the new phones to take them home and complete the iTunes step themselves, according to AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel,” Lawson reports.
“‘The iTunes software appeared to have been so overwhelmed by demand today that customers were not able to go through that final stage and sync their iPhones,’ Siegel said. ‘Apple has worked very hard to remedy that.’ Apple did not respond to requests for comment,” Lawson reports.
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