It seems like Friday was a busy day for Apple as the launch
of its eagerly awaited 3G iPhone was plagued by several problems.
According to the blogs and media reports, Apple’s servers
were overflowed by the customers trying to activate their new 3G iPhone and by
those who tried to upgrade their older iPhones to the latest software.
In fact, last year, when the initial iPhone was launched the
customers have reported similar activation problems and Apple tried to avoid
running into same issues this time by advising the clients to activate their
iPhones in-store.
However, according to various reports, salespeople
instructed customers Friday to go home, connect the phone to a personal
computer and download new software to activate it.
Unfortunately, it seems like the demand was much bigger than
anticipated and reports about activation problems were pouring in on Friday.
San Francisco Chronicle quoted an AT&T spokesman, John
Britton, who said that Apple's iTunes
software crashed globally for several hours due to the high volume of traffic.
However, it seems like the problem was cleared in the
afternoon. Britton explained that unlike last year, the 3G iPhone was
launched in 22 countries and the worldwide demand was unprecedented.
The iPhone owners who tried to update their phones through
iTunes have complaining about the error messages generated because iTunes was
unable to authenticate the devices.
Also, as Time reported, the calls for technical support were
referred by AT&T to Apple. So far, Apple and AT&T has declined to comment on the
issues, but The New York Times said that Apple’s executives acknowledged the
missteps.
It seems like the combination of the software updates and
the activation process was too much to handle for Apple’s servers.
The new iPhone combines 3G networking, which is twice as
fast as built-in GPS for expanded location-based mobile services, iPhone 2.0
software and of course, hundreds of third party applications to turn the mobile
phone into a pocket PC.
Customers will be able to take full advantage of the
Multi-Touch interface, accelerated 3D graphics, built-in accelerometer and
location based technology for an unprecedented experience, as Apple promised.
The iPhone 3G becomes available in 21 countries - Australia,
Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy,
Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden,
Switzerland, UK and the US – as of July 11, for the suggested retail price of
$199 (8GB model) or $299 (16GB model). France will have to wait until July
17 to get its hands on the iPhone 3G.
But the wonder-phone is not coming alone, dragging 500
downloadable applications with it, under the name App Store. The applications
will be available wirelessly and can be used immediately after being
downloaded.
Some of the apps are free, while others will be charged to
the user’s iTunes account. The 500 native applications cover a wide variety of
categories, from games, business and travel, to news, sports and health.
The App Store was launched on Thursday, one day before the
iPhone 3G, and is also available in iTunes running on Mac or PC, which syncs
applications to the iPhone or iPod tough using a USB cable, Apple explained.
