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Todays iPhone Article

Crush of traffic stymies Apple iPhone 3G debut

BY MIKE WENDLAND � FREE PRESS COLUMNIST � July 12, 2008

It was an iPocalypse.

What should have been a spectacular day for Apple had a pretty shaky start Friday.

The activation and synchronization of the much-awaited new Apple's iPhone 3G, coupled with a huge software update for millions of old discount new iPhone users, so overwhelmed Apple's Web servers that many customers ended up frustrated, angry and phoneless for much of the day.

"Apple should have seen this coming," said Jodi Friedman of West Bloomfield, who tried to upgrade her purchase discount iPhone 3G from the Apple site and lost phone connectivity and access to all her data because the device could not synchronize with her computer. "I rely on my iphone 3G for my home business."

Things improved by mid-afternoon as Apple's Web servers, staggered from a crush of traffic, began to recover.

The problems started an hour or so after the phone was released to customers, most of whom camped outside Apple and AT&T stores all night.

The activation process was supposed to have been done at the stores. For a while, it worked fine. But by 9 a.m. or so, long delays in making the connection to activate through Apple suddenly cropped up.

Perplexed, Apple and AT&T representatives locally and across the country began to suggest customers go to their home or work computers to complete the process.

Again, for the first hour or so, that worked. But by 11 a.m., attempts to reach the Apple activation site stalled out. The new phones were simply unable to connect with Apple and became basically useless.

At the AT&T Troy store where I bought mine, service reps were as frustrated as customers. The problem was all on Apple's end, they explained. The iTunes store just couldn't handle the initial demand.

But it wasn't just new purchasers who had problems.

Users of older iPhones who hoped to get the software update had trouble connecting.

Blame it on over-ambition.

Releasing a new phone, sending out a massive firmware and software update, opening a new App Store to sell programs and switching the .Mac Web portal to a beefed-up MobileMe service -- all in a day -- was overwhelming.

Source: http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080712/COL11/807120373

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