iPhone activations hosed until morning?

We've been hearing scattered reports some that newly-christened iPhone owners are having a heck of a time finalizing the activation process in iTunes. That sucks for a couple reasons: first, these puppies are darned near useless without being activated, and second, it seems the procedure is hanging after the point at which existing customers' current SIMs are deactivated. So yeah, long story short, there's a few people out there left phoneless while AT&T gets its act together, which it's been said may not be until morning. Burnin' the midnight oil over there, O Masters of Activation?

[Christian Martin @ Jun 30th 2007 4:01AM]

Apple Genuine Advantage™?

[MJ @ Jun 30th 2007 4:53AM]

(All times PST) Bought my iPhone at 8:30. Got it home and going at 9pm. Went out, got home at about 1am. couldn't sync, or match up with anything. iTunes down. It's now 1:52am, and it's down still

[Adam @ Jun 30th 2007 4:01AM]

CRAP! Back to making calls on my Zune again!

[Ben @ Jun 30th 2007 4:02AM]

Took me 7 hours before the email arrived!

They are getting a call on monday!

[Stevo @ Jun 30th 2007 4:08AM]

Dude, Steve Jobs must be pretty steamed about this issue. He and along with Apple as a whole, really wanted the iPhone user experience to be as seem-less as advertised.

[Stevo @ Jun 30th 2007 5:52AM]

I mean it matches most of its hype, but the activation is a kink in its armor and I'm sure Stevo in Cupertino ain't pleased.

[B1663r @ Jun 30th 2007 7:57AM]

@Jeve Sobs

Wow, now that is some cognitive dissonance if Iv ever seen it. Even though activation is hozed within hours of release you still think the iPhone experience is seamless?

[Jason @ Jun 30th 2007 10:37AM]

Um, exactly why is Steve steamed that they sold so many phones that a large wireless carrier can't keep up?

I wonder if he can berate the ppl at AT&T like he does at Apple and get something DONE about this?

[curtis @ Jun 30th 2007 4:09AM]

still waiting -- got mine at 6 pm pacific. my old phone still works, though, for now. but damnit, it's like i got a teddy ruxpin and had to wait a day for the battery delivery.

it's annoying that everything is crippled until activation is complete.

[Jason @ Jun 30th 2007 10:37AM]

[12+ hours for me]

Teddy Ruxpin.... ROFL! Here's mine:

... like my magical unicorn is just a horse with a horn glued on its head.

[mizzar @ Jun 30th 2007 4:12AM]

Is it possible to use iPhone's non-phone functions without activating it?

For example: If I wanted a WiFi internet browsing - digital photo taking - iPod Video, could I buy an iPhone and use it as such out of the box?

[Aaron @ Jun 30th 2007 4:16AM]

The word on the street is... no.

[mizzar @ Jun 30th 2007 4:36AM]

Is activation required only for WiFi or is it impossible to use it as a mere iPod without AT&T's support?

[Sean @ Jun 30th 2007 5:51AM]

You can't use the iPhone for anything without activation.

The only thing that works is 911.

[sharx.us @ Jul 1st 2007 11:46AM]

AT&T is offering PRE-PAID service. They're not advertising it. It's more expensive monthly, but doesn't include the 2yr contract, or credit check. Ask in the store.

[Inginious @ Jun 30th 2007 4:15AM]

Just one thought on everything iPhone.: "Apple, get ready for hackers!"

[Aaron @ Jun 30th 2007 4:18AM]

They're just making everyone wait for my birthday (the 30th).

[Dan @ Jun 30th 2007 4:26AM]

After waiting for 20 minutes, I took the iPhone out of its cradle, waited a minute, plugged it back in. iTunes popped up again with the "Please wait three minutes for activation" message and three minutes later, activation had been accomplished. Passed this on to two friends, they had a similar experience -- though for friend #2 it took three tries.

[tim @ Jul 2nd 2007 1:02AM]

BRILLIANT this worked for thanks

[fontendet24 @ Jun 30th 2007 4:26AM]

HACK iPhone!!!

People, let's make it for all humanity - iPhone must be free as ipod!!!

No contracts! No AT&T!
Insert your old sim-card and you're free.
All the other world is waiting for it!

[Evil Bastard @ Jun 30th 2007 4:31AM]

Right around 6:00PM EST my Nokia N75 could no longer get a signal. I tried using my brothers phone, which wasn't a 3G phone, to call AT&T. Waited 20 minutes on hold, and decided to try the online chat. Got home and 3 minutes after chatting with a AT&T rep, my phone came back. The rep tried to say it wasn't because of the IPHONE, but it seems pretty coincidental that my phone crapped out at 6:00pm.

[Fluke @ Jun 30th 2007 4:32AM]

Personally, I had no problems with my activation. And I'm on the West Coast, so the servers were in full swing. I'm reading people who are having troubles are the ones who need their number transferred over. And when they call AT&T they tell them that its their carrier holding things up. I've read one case where that was confirmed with what was eventually a conference call between the customer, AT&T and the customer's current carrier.

Makes one ponder, if this is the case... sabotage?

[HJKim @ Jun 30th 2007 12:17PM]

I'm porting from tmobile and I finished the activation process in itunes yesterday at 9 and I still need to get an email for confirmation.
I just called now and they told me to wait 24 hours.

24 HOURS??????????????????????????

[sharx.us @ Jul 1st 2007 11:46AM]

It can take up to 3 days to transfer a number. And think about it... this is crazyness... the other phone companies deal with porting a few hundred times a day... now it's tens of thousands... why would they add people to their porting operation to make it EASIER to leave? Yeah, you'll wait...

[Dave @ Jun 30th 2007 4:44AM]

A scorpion was walking along the bank of a river, wondering how to get to the other side.Suddenly he saw a fox. He asked the fox to take him on his back across the river.
The fox said, 'No, if I do that you'll sting me and I'll drown.' The scorpion assured him, 'If I did that we'd both drown.' So the fox thought about it, finally agreed. So the scorpion climbed up on his back and the fox began to swim. But halfway across the river the scorpion stung him.
As the poison filled his veins, the fox turned to the scorpion, said 'Why did you do that? Now you'll drown too.' 'I couldn't help it,' said the scorpion, 'it's my nature.'

Apple = Fox
AT&T = Scorpion

[Dominic @ Jun 30th 2007 5:09AM]

lol...I've heard a lot of those "fox crossing the river" stories..but this one is new

[Travis L Addington @ Jun 30th 2007 4:45AM]

As the other poster mentioned... Apple has to be furious. They made this whole experience just insanely painless, hell.... they had people by the door to clap for you as you left the store here...


BIG shock that at&t dropped the ball. As far as I can tell, most cell phone companies are ran and operated by drooling troglodytes.

[Dave @ Jun 30th 2007 4:46AM]

West coast.
Tried to activate at 10:30pm PST with my current AT&T number and account.
1:45am PST still waiting for activation.

AT&T = Scorpion

[Karter @ Jun 30th 2007 5:00AM]

I tried activating my new iPhone with an existing AT&T/Cingular account, only to be informed that AT&T will be emailing me when activation is complete. It's now 2AM PST and still no email from AT&T. Now my old phone doesn't work and my new iPhone doesn't do anything except look pretty in its cradle.

Come on Apple, why are you crippling iPhones out the gate like this. Allow users the ability to at least use the iPod and other non-phone features of the iPhone. Get rid of iTunes activation!

Can you imagine if the first iPods required activation before working. Does anyone think iPods would be as popular today? At least Windows XP allows you 30 days of use before it became locked until activation. If Apple is going down this route of activation for hardware, somebody should tell Steve he's finally lost it.

[sharx.us @ Jul 1st 2007 11:55AM]

Think about it as flying into Chicago O'Hare. (Most of you won't be able to afford to for a while, he he he). Anyway, you fly in on the Red Eye on Tuesday, you fly straight in. TRY TO FLY IN THE DAY BEFORE THANKSGIVING. You're going to circle the airport, over and over and over. Sure, you could WAIT A DAY... be sensible, fly in on Thanksgiving morning when there's no wait... but what's the fun in THAT? You wanna be FIRST at the table!! So you wait in the long lines, you sit on the crowded plane, and just when it seems that the trip is almost over... "This is the Captain... we're 73rd in the holding queque... we should be landing in about 45 minutes."

Yes, I realize that many of you have had to wait for more than 45 minutes. But c'mon. The people at AT&T don't have a magic wand, where they can wave it and say "Presto! I-Phone-o!" It's a PHYSICAL PROCESS involving switches and stuff... and y'all are waiting for that to go through. It's unfortunate. Could AT&T have done this differently? Sure, they could have invested a ton of money into making it easier for millions of people to activate their phones all at the same time - for the duration of one weekend.

I understand you're frustrated but, if you didn't think there might be a little "unseamlessness" in this process if you were first in line, go to your I-Phone and look up "naive" on Google.com. We'll wait...

[Karter @ Jul 1st 2007 1:58PM]

UPDATE: So it looks like my phone was activated over night. I awoke to a working iPhone. Yeah! Now for the task of transferring all my contacts from my old phone over to the new iPhone. It would have been nicer if I could have just swapped in my old Cingular/AT&T SIM Card; but whatever...I suppose Steve & AT&T had reasons why they wanted all new iPhone owners to have a new SIM Card.

[Robert Stern @ Jun 30th 2007 5:08AM]

I had to port my number over and I have been waiting for over 5 hours now.. Called and ATT said could be up to 24 hours due to high volume.

I itching to just say the hell with and make an emergency call, so I can at least see something.. ;)

[streetfighter @ Jun 30th 2007 5:09AM]

this should never had happened!!! i bought my iphone at 6pm est and its 5am now and still cant get this crap started.. im quiet upset about this. Does it look like work at ATT??? why couldnt Apple have the ATT handle this mess!!! i was on the phone late last night for about almost 5 hrs talking to ATT and Apple customer services!!

[Leonard Nimrod @ Jun 30th 2007 8:29PM]

@ streetfighter,

This is AT&Ts mess. It's their servers, their systems that active the bloody phone.

[BEETROOT @ Jun 30th 2007 5:13AM]

Bought my phone at 8pm, started activation at 8:30, up and running by 9:30.

There are a lot of people going at this at once, cut them a little slack.

[Landlocked @ Jun 30th 2007 5:14AM]

How *did* people survive before cell phones?! :)

[Dave @ Jun 30th 2007 5:36AM]

people don't survive. they die. so don't try anything new. ever.

[streetfighter @ Jun 30th 2007 5:15AM]

is it me or is anyone else having this problem where it states that "Could not complete the itunes store request. Store maybe busy. Check your internet connection or try again later".??? because i cant get passed it... i tried activating both on my mac and my pc....wtf!!!

[ppeng @ Jun 30th 2007 7:23PM]

I am getting the: "could not complete the itunes store request. The store may be busy" as well. I have been trying to activate this one for my mom since last night. I was able to activate mine no sweat!

[streetfighter @ Jun 30th 2007 7:33PM]

how did you get passed it the first time?

[ppeng @ Jun 30th 2007 9:45PM]

I never saw it the first time. It only appeared today when I tried to activate my mothers phone. I am going to try it on a different mac. Ill let you know apparently it is not widespread so it does not seem to be a true busy signal. Did you call anyone and if so what number?

[ppeng @ Jun 30th 2007 10:37PM]

So it turns out if you start the activation process at all on any computer (even getting passed one screen) and move to another, then you will get the "could not complete the itunes store request ..." error until you go back to the original computer you started on. Hope this helps. I am now passed the error and att tells me it will be 24-48 hrs to get my phone activated :(

[Jesse @ Jun 30th 2007 5:39AM]

Here's my question. Let's say I hold on to my old phone. Would it be possible for me to take my sim out of my iPhone and put it in my old phone for if I wanted to go and do something active and didn't want to chance my iPhone getting messed up?

[bhavesh patel @ Jun 30th 2007 5:42AM]

i was FINALLY able to ACTIVATE my phone. my holdup may have been different than someone else's, but hopefully this helps.

so i got the dreaded 24 hour notice. to cut to the chase, i was trying to port a number from tmobile to att. everything has to match for the process to occur smoothly. specifically in my case, i made the mistake of filling out the section of "where will this phone be used most".. well, my number is a chicago number, and i'm still based in chicago, but i'm working in new york now. att cannot port a number to a different market like that

so after HOURS on the phone last night, i finally got a supervisor in the itunes activation department to CANCEL my account request. 4 minutes later, i plugged in the phone, went through the process again, and then had a working iphone in another 4 minutes.

i wish those guys would figure it out and just give people a SECOND CHANCE to reapply if it's not going well the first time. they would save a lot of time by just cancelling the accounts and giving a customers a second try instead of doing tech support for hours that doesn't go anywhere.

i did have to be firm, but not rude to get past the standard response from the supervisor. so in my case, the secret was to get them completely cancel my account activation request. hope this helps!

bhavesh

[Gabe @ Jun 30th 2007 6:15AM]

can you please tell us which # you called, because they are giving out 3 different #s. Thanks, I wanted to cancel earlier, but they didn't let me, kept bouncing me around.

[Bhavesh @ Jun 30th 2007 7:16AM]

Sorry i dont know the number. I was transferred in. But it was the iTunes activation department. I think that is the number from the email

[jilie @ Jun 30th 2007 5:43AM]

are you sure that only the ativation sucks?

[mr_a @ Jun 30th 2007 6:02AM]

I beg to differ. Just activated at 12:45a Pacific time.

[rick @ Jun 30th 2007 6:23AM]

total BS....still waiting.

[jason carlton @ Jun 30th 2007 6:03AM]

It took me approximately 1.5 minutes to activate my iphone once it was plugged in.

I had some initial issues when I tried to activate on my mac book pro which is running the developer's version of leopard... so I plugged it into my PC and activated it in a snap.

Once activated I just plugged back into the mac book pro and everything sync'd like a charm.

My blackberry pearl deactivated within a minute and I was making my first call on the iphone within 5 minutes of initiating the process.

I WAS an existing ATT customer, so perhaps the problems are for people with new activation? Didn't read the comments to determine if this is happening to existing customers at all.

Personally, it was about the easiest thing I've ever done in my life... bummer to all the people out there having problems but I would give it until morning before going into super spaz mode since it's not all that uncommon to have issues with technology integration and complex systems.

PS the phone is badass... two-thumb typing with no problems and can tell that it will not be an issue at all after using it for a while. I love my blackberry but it's not even in the same league as this thing.