Next step: cry when your phone doesn’t work
Lines had formed at Apple and AT&T stores across the country, despite last year’s revelation that there was plenty of stock to go around and no line-waiting was needed.
Unfortunately, the second coming of the iPhone has turned into something akin to an activation Armageddon.
Not long after doors opened, AT&T’s systems crashed, and they could no longer perform activations in the store. This is a problem because, well, Apple and AT&T are requiring activations in the store this time around and have said repeatedly that there would be no at-home iTunes activations like there were last year.
Unfortunately, those of us who took our iPhones home to activate through iTunes were met with the iTunes Store being down. Since the new device is hooked up to our phone numbers, though, this means that our old phones (or at least mine) are no longer working. Hope no one’s trying to call me any time soon. Good thing this is my work number.
So what, exactly, is Apple’s deal today? From what we can tell, the culprit here is iTunes and not AT&T, Telefónica, or any of the other carriers. Is it because in-store activations have required thousands (if not millions) of people around the world to activate their phones at essentially the exact same time, therefore taking down the system? Or is it due to poor planning on Apple’s part?
There’s nothing like sending cash-flush customers home with, er, nothing.
I like the circles/subtitles/pointers KD!
How much do you want to bet AT&T’s servers run on Windows. How ironic would that be.
gquaglia – You broke the record for the totally baseless and bogus attack on Microsoft. Congratulations.
If it is true that Steve Jobs is ill, we can expect huge numbers of the members of his “worlds dumbest” cult to commit mass suicide upon Steve’s passing. I can hardly wait.
Tee-hee-hee!
FFS… what sort of screwed up planet did I incarnate on.
IT’S JUST A DAMNED PHONE PEOPLE!!!!!
Yeah, but if you have one, it means you’re the coolest person on the planet.
What worries me is that you CAN crash AT&T’s servers. I mean after all, they’re the telephone company!
“millions) of people around the world to activate their phones at essentially the exact same time, therefore taking down the system? Or is it due to poor planning on Apple’s part?”
Apparently these phone’s are being activated on the Itunes (Apple’s) own servers!
The last line should have read: “therefore taking down the servers, WHICH is due to Apple’s poor planning”.
#7 Telephone company infrastructures are usually pretty fragile, and they’re mainframe based. The core systems usually work pretty well, the infrastructure around them falls apart at the drop of a hat.
The custom work they did for this rollout choked but will eventually work as the Cobol guys work straight for six days to sort it out. That sort of system is impossible to test.
“millions of iphone being activated” No matter how much trouble they had this weekend millions of iphones in one day has got to be good for my apple stock.
I tried to buy a ipod touch today and there was still a big line at the apple store. So I tried Best Buy and Target and both sold out of ipod touch 8 and 16 gig models.
Why must it go thru iTunes, to be activated? Is it some kind of DRM thing. Or Apple’s iTunes desperately needs the extra business? Couldn’t (or shouldn’t) Apple have come up with a dedicated server system, just for iPhone activation? Rather than piggy-backing onto iTunes servers? Me thinks that there is more to this than we’re being told. Why tie a new product rollout, to your $.99 a song selling business, that’s probably got enough to do already? Perhaps because it’s the only servers that Apple has the DRM in place for moving the tunes thru the damn phones. So you’re not buying a new phone, you’re buying an RF’d iPod.
The only reason I can imagine to go through Itunes is because Steve Jobs is a control freak. Certifiable. Remember how many Iphones went to countries like China? Something like 1,200,000 Iphones were hooked up to networks other than AT&T, which meant that the residuals Apple was supposed to get from AT&T didn’t happen.
Well, the fix to this is to not allow the phone to leave the store before it’s properly activated. That helps assure that the phone will continue to bring in revenue for years to come.
Welcome to the jungle, Fanboys.
#3 I was thinking cult too when all this frenzy began. Save your money and buy a hooker.
“IT’S JUST A DAMNED PHONE PEOPLE!!!!!”
That is sooo funny because it’s almost true. My uncle used to say it up till he somehow ended up with an iPhone in mid March. Then hell broke loose and the new slogan was:”WHO THE HELL NAMED THIS A IPHONE, THIS IS THE GREATEST MOBILE DEVICE ON EARTH”. Now he mandates everybody in his company to have one, and pays 40 dollars per month to use it. There are around 80 people working for his company. He used to call me a Apple geek, when I showed up with my Newton, but now he just looks at me and thinks: “What a looser, doesn’t even have an iPhone”.
How come the fact there are problems in activating iPhones is somehow news, it was exactly the same situation last year. The next news will be, Apple sold only 200000 iPhones, it’s a flop. Oooh, I see, you mean it’s all marketing tricks to keep the iPhone in the news. Well, that makes sense, after all it’s just a phone.
# 11
Sell on the news.
You may be an I tard if.
You were in line in Toronto for the big I phone launch, but you were # 101 in line.
Then you spent the whole night in line and went home with no phone.
They only had 100 phones for the Toronto launch. He He.
sad
There are some nervous employees at Apple right now. I hope someone has gets a recording of Steve Job’s reaction. “Off with their heads!”
#17 its “iTard”.
Fanboys get their own reward, bad service.
this is why I like my ipod touch. All the fun of an iPhone without the hassle of activation or the ass-raping from At&t.
iStupid is as iStupid does.
Three words: “Resell on Ebay.”
Anyone who waits in any line for any tech product deserves all of this and more. What would be more deserving would be to have to run through a gauntlet of people beating your brains in for being so stupid to wait in line for a damn phone.
I do love the biased author though stating it was at&t’s system that crashed, when, in fact, it was APPLE’s iTunes that crashed, rendering the final step in the activation process undoable. From everything I read at&t’s internal systems performed flawlessly….apple was the one to blame in this fiasco.
If you are going to buy an Iphone buy the bloody thing next week and avoid the mess. Okay that may be to much to ask of iphone fans but use your brain if you can.