[Macworld]

Post your comments for Crowds, activation delays at San Francisco iPhone launch here

[Terrance]

There does indeed appear to an activation delay. iTunes store became unavailable half-way through my upgrade to version 2 here at home, leaving my vintage iPhone disabled.
I expect the servers are overwhelmed.
In the meantime, the phone shows only the graphic of a USB plug aligned to the iTunes icon with an option for an emergency call. not very useful, but hopefully a temporary glitch.
Onward!
Terrance

[veggiedude]

Has anyone been able to upgrade their iPod Touch to the 2.0 software yet?

[Falstaff]

I have the same problem. I understand if the upgrade traffic has overwhlemed the servers, but I'm irritated that my phone is disabled until I can get in and complete the upgrade. As a completely satified and early business adoptor of the iPhone I expected more from Apple. Thankfully it's Friday and I won't "need" my phone until Monday morning. Hopefully by the end of the day Apple will correct the problem.

[Terrance]

Still, it's a planetary launch of new software, a new device, and a service conversion from .mac to mobileme. An ambitious implementation for simultaneous deployment by a single company. Has it been done before?
I'm only glad I'm not one of the staff on the floor taking the heat for the glitches. It must be a madhouse for Apple IT.
Onward!
Terrance

[Falstaff]

My sister-in-law works at a 30 foot Apple store and she says the morning has been a freakin' nightmare. People are ticked because they were initially told their phone would be activated and they'd carry it out of the store with all working well.

[jmarkel]

The store in my city couldn't activate the phones so they just sold as is and are telling people to activate at home. I've been trying for 2 hours and keep getting the iTunes store error message -4. I updated my old iPhone last night, but unfortunately since I upgraded my old sim does not work so I'm up you know what creek without an iphone.

[Macphrenzie]

12 noon on the east coast and I've just kept trying and then all of a sudden my iPhone goes into sync mode action. YEAH!!! Phone now says is activated and restoring my contacts, etc.
Thank you – whomever you are that's been working night and day at Apple to make this happen even if it was a crappy plan by the "higher ups".

[louielu12]

200 per hour? Give me a break! I was at an AT&T store (right near an apple store). I got there an hour early, and was roughly the 40th person in line. After an hour, they announced that 16GB levels were low. By 2.5 hours, They ran out of all 16GB models. It took 3 hours for me to get in the door (and remember, I was the 40th person). This system was terrible. My sister got an 8GB, and we went to the Apple store for cases. They had a line, but since we waited already, they were going to let me get an iPhone without waiting again. Then a stupid error came up saying I could only upgrade at an AT&T store.
This system was terrible!

[kensie244]

I waiting in line since 5am this morning and there were 50 people in front of me. At 8am the AT&T store opened and they only had 40 in stock. There were over 300 of us at the time. Great preparation! Did they not learn anything from last year?

[Macphrenzie]

Keep trying. I was getting the error 4 message too. And after the 15th time -- YES 15th -- if finally worked.

[PeevedIphoner]

WARNING!! WARNING!!
If you have an existing iphone and try to update you will have major problems and be without a phone until apple fixes the situation. The system goes through downloading the software without a problem. It then backs up your iphone... it then loads the new software... all that works fine. Then it tries to activate and you get an error message about not being able to reach the server. The result is a bricked iphone. A 45 minute wait on the phone with iphone support results only in the answer that they know there is a problem, they are sorry and hope to fix it soon (no definition of what soon means).

[doglesby]

I'm seeing a lot of blame directed at Apple here. My understanding is the at&t servers are down, just like the O2 servers in the UK. You'd think the providers with the most experience selling iPhones would have done better.

[johnzero]

This is just intolerable. Yes, it makes sense that there would be delays, but to design the process so that there is no way to back-out and resume normal phone service is just the most shoddy and, frankly,unforgivable engineering. The failure to anticipate conditions that any of us could have predicted, and leave the user with a "get out whole" option... do you think they sub-contracted the activation process to Microsoft?.