Today marked the release of the iPhone 3G across the world, New Zealand began the process and the launches slowly spanned the globe.
The first cracks began appearing when the iPhone was set to launch in the UK, as customers queued through the early hours of the morning they were quickly disappointed as stocks dwindled at O2, Carphone Warehouse and Apple Stores across the country. Most O2 stores reporting that they had less than 50 units.
These issues and frustrations were nothing compared to what would occur as US purchasers began hammering the iTunes activation servers. Not long after the 8AM launch of the iPhone 3G on the East Coast Apple’s servers began slowing and eventually died leaving thousands queuing across the country.
Reports emerged that some were being sent home with un-activated units, instead being told to activate them at home through iTunes.
The problem was increased by magnitude as Apple simultaneously released the iPhone and iPod touch 2.0 firmware update causing a flurry of users to attempt to download the software.
As servers failed many iPhone owners in AT&T and Apple stores were left with half “bricked” iPhones and users at home trying to update were also suffering with non-functional units.
The problems come after a significant delay in the release of MobileMe which took over 24 hours to fully come online and is reportedly still sluggish.
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aFj
12th July 2008, 09.02 am
As of 16:00 yesterday, my local O2 store reported their credit checking service was still not online (I heard reports there was a fire at the processing centre). As such I have an iPhone 3G which is not activated.
Attempts to sync with iTunes yesterday resulted only in network timeouts.
I have been told to expect activation some time today.
Mobile Me is also very slow and prone to logging you out, dropping you into the new user page and generally performing very poorly.
I am awaiting a statement from both O2 and Apple on this situation and an explanation of why everything went so horribly wrong.
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