RSSActivation problems delay sales during iPhone 3G premiere
By Nate Mook | Published July 11, 2008, 8:34 AM
9:50 am EDT July 11, 2008 - Customers at Apple Stores across the country were told to wait, as it appeared that Apple's iTunes system it is using to activate the iPhones on AT&Ts network crashed.
Unlike last year's premiere, all 3G iPhone activation must take place in-store, rather than enabling customers to activate their phones manually. Transactions are having to be re-run and are still failing, report customers from inside Apple Stores in Maryland and Michigan.
10:25 EDT July 11, 2008 - Some customers at the Apple Store in Towson, Maryland were sent home with their new iPhone 3Gs and told that they could activate their phones at home, since in-store activation was not working. This while other store personnel were saying that word had not yet been passed down from AT&T Corporate as to whether they could actually do so.
For a 45-minute period, new customers were not allowed inside this particular store, and told to remain outside in line as the activation problem was being solved. At approximately 10:18 EDT, customers were told the activation problem was fixed, and new customers were allowed back inside. It now appears the sales and activation processes have resumed.
11:15 am EDT July 11, 2008 - The bugs in the system have apparently not been ironed out completely, as once again, the sales process has stalled since approximately 10:52 am EDT. Lines in the Towson store are once again at a standstill.
11:19 am EDT July 11, 2008 - Apple Store personnel have informed Nate Mook in Towson that the AT&T activation system is once again officially down. Sales lines were halted apparently soon after stores in the Pacific time zone, including California, had their activation systems come online.
At 8:00 am EDT this morning, the iPhone 3G officially went on sale across the United States following launches in Europe and Asia. While the fanfare was decidedly more muted than last year, crowds in the hundreds still showed up before dawn at Apple and AT&T stores.
BetaNews visited Apple stores in Baltimore and Michigan, as well as AT&T stores in Maryland and Virginia. By 7am, the lines exceeded 100 people and only grew as the clock ticked down to launch. One individual had been waiting at the Apple store in Towson, Maryland, where the line topped 250 people, since 9am Thursday.
We'll have several more personal stories and photos to share with you today, as what may be becoming a nationwide annual festival enters its second big year.
FOR MORE:
- iTunes, activation outages are rendering new and old iPhones problematic, with reports from BetaNews correspondents on the east coast and Michigan
- Eager iPhone 3G buyers begin all-night wait outside stores by Nate Mook reporting from Baltimore
- Tales from the iPhone 3G launch lines by Tim Conneally
- Software updates for iPhone, AppleTV, iTunes go live by Ed Oswald
- First Look: iPhone 2.0 software delivers big thanks to App Store by Mykel Nahorniak
- The new apps for iPhone 2.0: What's good? by Tim Conneally
Being on the west coast, I'm most upset by the fact that I bought the iPhone, and they transferred over my service from my 8525, but now with the activation problems, I have ZERO phone service. Given these problems had been going on for 3 hours minimum prior to the store I bought from even opening, we should have been told about the activation problems and had service with our existing phone maintained.
Score: 0
|Life a B**** then you buy the latest and hippest cool phone that doesn't work then you die. The nature of Life.
Sorry Grasshoppers:(
Have a good day:)
/sarcasm
Score: 0
|I work at the Network Operations Center/Data Center/Enterprise Command Center of AT&T Mobility and for the most part Apple is at fault for all 3G iPhone activations thus far. I have a 2.5G iPhone also. That said...
Soooo - YES, The iPhone activations worldwide have brought the iTunes servers to a crawl and AT&T's proxy servers were having issues. Both are the cause of the iPhone nightmares yet iTunes is the BIGGEST issue so far. Apple's iTunes was NOT ready to take traffic from 22 different countries trying to activate 3G iPhones since yesterday.
AT&T's VPs and other upper level management and my team are engaged in about 3 conference calls working/monitoring any issues that come up. Apple folks are also engaged.
Apple apparently has blocked ALL international traffic to iTunes in order to let the U.S. activations catch up.
On the positive side, iPhone activation issues last year were by far worst...so there's hope people.
One favor I would kindly ask you all to PLEASE calm down...yelling at AT&T or Apple employees is NOT going to solve any issues. Servers have limitations, you know.
Everybody (specially Apple) is working hard to turn your turn your "iBricks" into "iPhones" again.
Go walk around a park in the meantime! take a break from technology! Maybe you'll meet a lovely lady or gent to fall in love with.
Peace out.
Score: 0
|Go walk around a park in the meantime! take a break from technology! Maybe you'll meet a lovely lady or gent to fall in love with.
Less dating advice, please, and more,
working hard to turn your turn your "iBricks" into "iPhones" again.
Peace out.
(I always love these comments....it's like they expect people who have paid $200+ and signed contracts to just bend over when the other party utterly fails to deliver... "Hey, just be *happy* about it!")
Score: 0
|"Apple apparently has blocked ALL international traffic to iTunes in order to let the U.S. activations catch up"
I very much doubt that. That would leave them quite unpopular with the rest of the world.
Besides there are some countries that are not reporting any activation problems.
Score: 0
|i'm in the midwest, milwaukee. and we're still not able to activate the darn things! thanks for the info though!
Score: 0
|And in the meantime, those of us with the iPhone Edge now can only use our phones in case of an emergency after downloading the firmware and installing it. iTunes cannot connect to the iTunes store to re-activate the iPhones after the firmware update... mine has been sitting on the cradle for 70mins now waiting its turn to get an activation signal.
Per the apple representative, the scenario where tons of people are all activating their phones causing an overload of their servers is an event Apple could have done nothing about.
I guess all the media hype didn't sink in at Apple.
Score: 0
|Wow I'm glad I did it the manual way last night.
Score: 0
|iPhone phone home.
Score: 0
|Rogers Canada i am sure isn't going to have this type attraction to their launch. Those that do i hope get ridiculed and embarassed at being hosed by another big corp.
Congrats to Apple another billion in the bank
Score: 0
|correction
congrats to apple for another billionS in the bank
Score: 0
|