iPhone activations hosed until morning?
By Chris Ziegler 
posted Jun 30th 2007 3:57AM
posted Jun 30th 2007 3:57AM
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?
Happened to me around 8pm PDT. When I called ATT they said that their servers were being hit HARD.
Anyways, I got it activated after powering the iphone all the way down, disconnecting, rebooting my macbook pro, reconnecting. Then I got my new 408 phone number and I'm set.
You don't have to deactivate your existing SIM. You can just take out the pre-installed SIM, and replace it with your current active SIM. Then just activate it on iTunes.
See the ipod forum on howardforums.com
A friend of mine, Todd Mundt, bought one and it took about 10 hours or so to get activated. He twittered about at www.twitter.com/toddmundt. Todd is a pretty important guy because he's probably the most influential tech-oriented guy in the world of Public Broadcasting. He is a celebrity of sorts, having hosted NPR's Morning Edition nationally and locally. His tweets:
- AT&T completed iPhone activation 90 minutes ago.... at last!
about 1 hour ago from twitterrific
- i'm one of the folks waiting for an email notifying me on a completed iphone application :/ about 8 hours ago from twitterrific wondering why i'm washing my hands before opening the iPhone box about 9 hours ago from twitterrific
- I've decided on my gameplan: I will saunter by the Apple Store around 6:30pm. if the line isn't impossibly long... I just may join it :) about 17 hours ago from twitterrific
wow. I had no trouble at all. It took about 2 minuites to get it up and running. In fact, I an posting this on my iphone right now. Anyway, just wanted to let you know it did go smoothly for some people.
I am a current cingular / att customer that is upgrading to the iPhone (transferring existing number) and still waiting on activation.
It appears that existing accounts take extra time to transfer (along the lines of a few days) vs. new accounts that can be created instantly.
this blows.... after spending all that money,I want to play with my new toy!
I'm waiting since 7.32 PM EST last night and still nothing.
Lennert
Typical problem from AT&T/Cingular.
Well I guess its time for the people that bought the i-phone and is having trouble to return them so AT&T can lose money.
the customers are the ones who will lose money. its a 10% charge to return your opened iphone
Actually this is probably a good thing. iPhone users will need to get used to waiting seeing that this is only a EDGE device and no 3G for the US (did anyone see the announcement that Europe is getting a 3G iPhone that came out today). Just makes you feel proud, don't it? LOL!