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Apple iPhone Launch Event a Success, Activation Problems Surface

Saturday, June 30th, 2007 at 1:55 AM - by

Apple Inc. had lines around the block across the U.S. Friday for its much anticipated iPhone launch, making the initial release of the product a success. At the same time, however, reports began to surface almost immediately about problems activating the phones once purchased, with many of those reports fingering issues on AT&T's side of the equation.

At the San Francisco flagship store at Stockton and Market, the line wrapped around three sides of the (long) block an hour before release. Hundreds of people lined up at stores in Boulder, Austin, and New York, according to iPodObserver.com reporters and reader reports, with one report from the Manhattan store comparing the scene outside to New Year's Eve celebrations. iPodObserver.com will have more detailed reports on these event over the weekend.

It remains to be seen if initial sales numbers meet Wall Street expectations, and the real question of iPhone's success won't be answered until much more time has passed; but, the launch event itself appears to have been quite successful across the country. The Apple Stores were packed, sales were swift, and employees and customers alike appear to have been having a good time. The same can not necessarily be said with many AT&T retail locations where supplies were apparently more limited, anecdotally speaking, and the staff less enthusiastic about the lines of customers.

On the less-than-positive side, however, are the initial reports of activation trouble for some customers. While this reporter's activation process was seamless, easy, and fast, complaints of activation problems surfaced on Apple's support forums, and some online media outlets have also reported problems.

iPodObserver.com readers are encouraged to post their experiences in the forums and article comments.

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Terrin said:

member since 29 Jan 2006 with 414 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Sat Jun 30, 2007 2:11 am

It seems like most of the problems were with if you had early changed your account around with ATT in anticipation of the iPhone.

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Spider said:

member since 12 Aug 2001 with 2997 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Sat Jun 30, 2007 2:46 am

Wow, and the spammers are out early.

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ericl said:

member since 25 Jul 2004 with 27 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Sat Jun 30, 2007 5:25 am

Yea I tried to activate yesterday at 830PM EST and I'm still waiting. I got an e-mail stating to wait at least 24 hours. I called the AT&T number and they show that I'm all set and just waiting for my original number to port over from Verizon Wireless. So I can just blame theme.

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A guest said: (hide)

Sat Jun 30, 2007 6:47 am

I ported my Verizon number over to the iPhone last night -- the entire activation process, including porting the phone number, took less than ten minutes. It could not have been easier! I'm not sure these are activation "problems" per se -- AT&T was saying that it could take anywhere from six to minutes to six hours to port numbers from other carriers -- I was one of the lucky ones!

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dhp said:

member since 22 May 2003 with 182 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Sat Jun 30, 2007 7:49 am

It appears that no Apple store sold out of the iPhone, which means there was absolutely no reason for all those people to have wasted hours or days of their lives standing in line for it. Anyone could have walked in a couple hours (or less) after the launch and picked one up in a few minutes.

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A guest said: (hide)

Sat Jun 30, 2007 9:38 am

dhp wrote:
It appears that no Apple store sold out of the iPhone, which means there was absolutely no reason for all those people to have wasted hours or days of their lives standing in line for it. Anyone could have walked in a couple hours (or less) after the launch and picked one up in a few minutes.
Well geez man. Why didn't you tell us that yesterday!

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Terrin said:

member since 29 Jan 2006 with 414 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Sat Jun 30, 2007 10:56 am

Well, now that wouldn't have been as much fun, would it? At some places, standing in line was a party. Come on can you say, "Let's Go iPhone."

<quote>Anyone could have walked in a couple hours (or less) after the launch and picked one up in a few minutes.</quote>

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A guest said: (hide)

Sat Jun 30, 2007 11:58 am

Absolute nightmare. My wife bought the iPhone last night about 7pm. She spent almost 2 hours on the phone getting bounced back and forth between AT&T and Apple. Both sides claimed it wasn't their problem. My wife was actually in tears at one point because of the horrible way she was treated. She had literally been talking about the iPhone everyday since Steve Jobs' keynote. She was so excited. By 1am, she said she wished she had never bought the thing. We went to bed and still don't have a working iPhone. Maybe today.

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Bosco said:

member since 03 Jun 2002 with 1002 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Sat Jun 30, 2007 1:49 pm

Guest wrote:
My wife was actually in tears at one point...

(New Apple Ad) iPhone: Making women cry for 17 hours.

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A guest said: (hide)

Sat Jun 30, 2007 2:42 pm

I think that anyone who would literally cry because they have to wait a few hours to activate their telephone has issues that an electronic gadget cannot fix.

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geoduck said:

member since 30 Dec 2003 with 1922 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Sat Jun 30, 2007 4:07 pm

Let's see; A few million iPhones are sold and OMG there are problems with everyone trying to activate them at the same time.

Duh!

I would have been surprised if there hadn't been problems. That's the price you pay for going out on the first day. Give it a week and things will settle down. To Guest who's wife is having such a bad time - CHILL. I'm sorry for her but I can't muster a lot of sympathy because a cheeseburger could have predicted these first day issues. What she's going through should not have been a surprise. Personally I AM surprised there haven't been more severe problems.

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A guest said: (hide)

Sat Jun 30, 2007 11:04 pm

24 hours and counting - no activation yet. And I've been with AT&T. Unbelievably frustrating.

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A guest said: (hide)

Sun Jul 01, 2007 1:43 am

It's been 23 hours and 20 minutes since I tried to activate my phone My brother got his phone working after waiting for about 20 hours. One of my peers for whom I bought the 2nd phone (that I stood in line for) got hers working 15 minutes after trying to activate it. Isn't that ironic! I stood in line for hours, and she didn't but hers is working 15 minutes after she got it and mine still is not. I, however, have a message in an AT&T email that says the my Verizon service will be disconnected at 1:59AM EDT. That's in about 20 minutes, so I am hopeful that maybe mine will work then.

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gslusher said:

member since 13 Nov 2002 with 2088 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Sun Jul 01, 2007 5:39 am

It is quite possible that some other carriers are dragging their feet on requests to port a number over to ATT.

dhp wrote:
It appears that no Apple store sold out of the iPhone, which means there was absolutely no reason for all those people to have wasted hours or days of their lives standing in line for it. Anyone could have walked in a couple hours (or less) after the launch and picked one up in a few minutes.

Perhaps, perhaps not. Several Apple stores in California, Nevada and Texas are out. You can check the availability after 9 PM. Then, too, what about the millions of people who don't live near any Apple store, but had to go to an ATT store? Apparently, many ATT stores were sold out quickly.

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daemon said:

member since 17 May 2007 with 344 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Sun Jul 01, 2007 5:03 pm

Guest wrote:
I think that anyone who would literally cry because they have to wait a few hours to activate their telephone has issues that an electronic gadget cannot fix.

I thought Apple products "just work."

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Intruder said:

member since 07 Jul 2004 with 3149 posts, TMO Mac Specialist, send him a message or view his profile

Sun Jul 01, 2007 6:15 pm

They do, when AT&T gets around to activating the accounts.

Classic case of system overload.

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jbruni said:

member since 14 Jul 2006 with 105 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Sun Jul 01, 2007 11:23 pm

My activation problem was a bit weird. As of July 1, the Post Office changed my ZIP code. When I went to activate my iPhone, the address search turned up the correct address with the new ZIP code correctly. However, AT&T's coverage database didn't recognize the ZIP code and said there was no coverage in my area. Stuck, I just put in my work address as the usage address and AT&T seemed happier about it.

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A guest said: (hide)

Mon Jul 02, 2007 12:33 am

I too had problems with my activations. It seems that a discount I had many years ago due to a corporate tie in had flagged my account a as a business account. After about three hours on hold, AT&T's iPhone team had the account work around in place and said my phone should activate. Well, my internet connection chose that time to go down and the AT&T rep staid on the phone with me whilst I spent about twenty minutes trying to restore my connection. I had to let her go when I couldn't get an internet connection. Frustrated, I got in my car and drove to the nearest WiFi hot spot, which happened to be the Apple store and used teir connection to complete the process. Once the glitch with my AT&T acount was fixed, the activation process went smoothly in about ten minutes. I am happy as a fat pig in the sun with my new iPhone, I used it last night to find the restaurant we were looking for. I look forward to a happy time with my newest Apple product.

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A guest said: (hide)

Fri Jul 27, 2007 5:21 pm

ericl wrote:
Yea I tried to activate yesterday at 830PM EST and I'm still waiting. I got an e-mail stating to wait at least 24 hours. I called the AT&amp;T number and they show that I'm all set and just waiting for my original number to port over from Verizon Wireless. So I can just blame theme.

I guess it's working now chuncky? Danny

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