Before crying too hard, look at this set of stats and see why I, and many others are frustrated.

Hong Kong population 7 million
Number of people who registered for iPhone – 60,000
Number of iPhones available on launch day – 500

That’s right 500 phones! We’re told it will take about a month to roll out to those who registered prior to launch. This is shameful at best.

gotta admit, I’m shocked that nobody has commented on the fact that the 2.0 update has rendered, as far as I can tell, thousands of phones useless on a summer friday. I was lucky enough to erase mine about 9 am and am still waiting for the itunes store to become available. Apple discussion boards are going nuts. Where’s the posting on this?

Scandalous – in my area, most stores had 20 phones, one store and the one apple store had 40. So I bought a phone, with promise of delivery some time next week, then go home, upgrade my old iPhone – and now it’s bricked! 2.0 upgrade forces a re-activation, and Apple’s activation servers have choked on the load. Did they not think a significant number of people were going to upgrade today? Incredible.

Our store in Ann Arbor was madness. Sadly I became the source of information because I was hooked up to wifi, checking Twitter and Macsurfer. Between this and MobileMe, this is an apocalyptic day in Apple history. I’m not even plugging my new phone in until I hear word that it’s safe. Anyone else on-hand, maybe with stock shortages? Those are the folks I want to hear from (besides Hong Kong, which sounds crazy).

My experience this morning (yesterday morning? – I’ve lost track) was pleasant enough, although maybe a little drawn out.

I went to the AT&T store in Hamilton Marketplace (Hamilton Township, NJ) at about 5:50am, and there were approximately 18 people in line already. A number of them looked underage, so some of them might not have been getting iPhones after all. The crowd was nice and calm, and the manager of the store appeared at about 7am, passing out the iReady checklist, reminding customers about the fact that they’d need to buy the AppleCare rather than insurance, and checking upgrade eligibility for existing AT&T subscribers. The doors opened at 8 sharp, and about 10 people were ushered in – the first 7 went immediately to a sales rep, while the remaining 3 were given some time to cool off and look at accessories. The store was stocked with bluetooth headsets and a couple of 3G-sized cases/skins. Additionally, one of the assistant managers started handing out bottles of water to those left waiting outside.

By the time I reached the front of the line outside, the woman who was in line before me (now in the ‘on deck’ position inside) signaled me and mouthed “SOLD OUT 16GB BLACK”. Turns out that the family in front of me WAS buying phones for everyone, I suppose. There were still 16GB white versions available, and I managed to snag one of the last ones.

Naturally, as soon as I reached the counter (about 8:30am EDT), things started going wrong – it’s my luck. First number porting fails, then AT&T’s billing & account creation system goes down, and then finally, by 9am and with the Central time zone open for business, iTunes’ phone activation server finally bought it. After about 3 tries to create my account, Tony the sales rep (who was extremely patient and well-mannered, especially considering the chaos around him) offered to keep my phone under the counter while he helped another customer, and that he’d try my account again in a few minutes. He was trying, and I couldn’t fault him for that, so I stepped aside and let another customer (or 2) through – since these were, mainly, current AT&T subs, the account & porting issues weren’t a problem.

The 8GB units held out for about another hour (until 10 or so, maybe another 15 customers deep in the line), and account creation came back up around 9:45, but iTunes was still down. The store manager eventually made the decision to allow the units into the wild while still ‘bricked’, allowing the users to unbrick the phones in iTunes on their own time. Tony was able to get back to me by 10:30, and while some issues with my number port held things up a bit longer, I was out the door by 11:10 with a phone in hand, an account created, and a number being ported.

As a postscript, I got home from work at 2:30 and made a beeline for iTunes. The phone unbricked on the first try. The number finished porting around 1:30, so I was all set.

I was a bit surprised by the lack of phones at this particular store – while not as high trafficked as the stores in Lawrenceville, it does its fair share, so I would have thought they’d at least have 40-50 phones on hand. (I’m curious to know what the nearest Apple Stores in Freehold & Sagemore had in stock…) That said, at least AT&T had a backup plan this time around, offering direct fulfillment by early next week to anyone who stood in line and didn’t get a phone today. I’m not surprised that AT&T’s system locked up – lots of telco systems are built on legacy programs that can’t handle the kind of load presented by launches of this magnitude – but I’m rather surprised that not only was iTunes’ activation server a weak link, but that it went down ONLY after the Eastern time zone went online. I’d have thought Asia and Europe would throw enough load at those servers to give them a workout…

All things considered, today wasn’t the iPocalypse. It wasn’t the end of the Apple universe as we know it. It wasn’t the day that will live in infamy and will bring Apple crashing down to Earth. It was a successful launch of a long awaited product, with enthusiasm tempered by systemic glitches showing up at less-than-opportune times. (And yes, it was successful. All those AT&T and Apple locations selling out of stock are proof of that.) The iTunes activation server came back up, so those “thousands of phones rendered useless on a summer Friday” only needed to be down for a short period of time. (And it’s worth asking the question – how many of those ‘thousands’ grabbed the update before it was official?)

I realize that I may be sounding like an Apple fanboy (and I suppose I am – I’ve been using Macs for 20 years this year, and the ][e for years before that), and I know I got lucky that, in the end, things worked out well for me, but to misquote my favorite TV show, “just repeat to yourself ‘it’s just a phone, I should really just relax’.”

A follow-up to my previous post… left the Apple store on Friday without a phone and had to go back to the AT&T store (no iPhones there) to get a new SIM for my old phone. After 4 phone calls to customer support, I got my voice mail working again and a service credit for the nightmare that was Friday.

On Saturday I went back to the Apple store to see if they had worked out the software issues with AT&T and I was finally able to buy a 16GB black 3G model on my FamilyTalk plan replacing my original phone number. The store manager recognized me from Friday and apologized again for the previous day’s fiasco and he threw in some very nice iPhone-related shwag with my purchase. It was nice to see that they really do care about customer satisfaction. I definitely learned my lesson not to buy anything on the first day it is available, I will leave that to the hardcore fan boys. – No longer bricked or stranded!