iPhone "iPocalypse" as activations fail en masse

As an effort to thwart users from purchasing iPhones and illicitly unlocking them for use on other carriers (and to escape paying service fees to AT&T), Apple and AT&T decided that, with the iPhone 3G, phones would have to be activated in the store at the time of purchase.

This isn't such a stretch from a policy standpoint: Most cell phones need to be activated when you pick them up, otherwise they won't work. But most phones don't have lines around the block made up of people who'd kill to get their hands on the things. Apple obviously saw this coming, so it found a way around the problem: Its setup from last year, which let people activate the phone and select their service plan in a more liesurely atmosphere, was pure genius (even though a few people naturally complained of trouble getting the activation to work).

Well, the alternative, to go back to the traditional cell phone activation scheme, is already looking like a disaster. Bloggers are reporting widespread, catastrophic problems with the in-store activation process. At Gizmodo, early purchasers are reporting total havoc in stores as activations fail. The phones can't be activated in stores, and some purchasers are being allowed to take them home... where they still won't activate. One report says that every computer in a Boston Apple Store is "stuck in the iPhone activation screen."

For the precious few who are seeing lines actually moving, they're moving slow. If you expect to buy an iPhone 3G today, better plan to wait. Buyers are reporting that people who actually make it inside may spend over an hour getting their phone activated.

Disaster? Absolutely. Gizmodo notes though that it's not even the people buying new phones that are the problem, it's the fact that Apple brilliantly decided to release a major firmware update for all iPhones on the same day as releasing a new model. Millions of existing iPhone users are upgrading their software at home while Apple tries to use the same servers to activate new models. It's not a big deal if a home user has to wait an extra hour, but those in line are suffering for the goof-up.

Best advice, iPhone shoppers: Go home before you blow the entire day in line. Try again next week.

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