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UPDATE: AT&T denies it has activation problems. A spokesperson just sent us the following statement:

We had our most successful iPhone launch with more than 200,000 preorders placed in the first 12 hours last week. As customers are receiving their devices – and more are buying in our stores – we’re seeing completed activations across our servers and are moving requests through as quickly as possible. We’re not seeing any widespread delays at this time, though customers may experience minor wait times as more devices are activated.

AT&T’s activation servers have melted down, according to a tip we just got from an Apple store employee.

What a difference a week makes. Last week I went to the San Francisco downtown Apple store to take pictures of the sad Steve Jobs memorial. This week it was a different world at the iPhone 4s launch. Business as usual. There was only one reminder of Steve, a single bouquet of flowers stashed in the corner of a window.

This isn’t the best way of showing the speed increases that come along with the iPhone 4S, but it is one of the ways that the iPhone 4S’ faster A5 chip will immediately be felt: in significantly shorter app launch times.

In case you needed proof that dropping your iPhone 4S face down on the concrete from six feet up without a case was a bad idea.

[via iClarified]

Psst. Wanna buy Apple’s design for the iPhone 5? In the shadowy world of case manufacturing, leaks and rumors fuel a market worth more than $436 million annually. After one company lost a bet worth thousands of dollars on a supposed iPhone 4S design, competitors say guessing Apple’s next move can be an expensive gamble.

Here’s Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak getting two white iPhone 4s’s set up at the Los Gatos, California, Apple Store today, just eight minutes after the doors opened. Woz was first in line, after having waiting since noon the previous day.

The woman in the center is Woz’s wife, Janet Hill. It’s unknown whether one is his and the other is hers, or whether they’re both for Woz. He’s been known to carry two iPhones so he can surf the Internet on one while talking on the other.

That shiny thing on the table, by the way, is Woz’s bad-ass stainless steel business card.

Apple’s release of iOS5 caused “the highest ever traffic” over the UK broadband network, BT has confirmed.

We reported yesterday that demand for iOS5 caused “unprecendented” broadband traffic for some UK internet service providers – but today, BT (which manages the entire national broadband network as well as running its own ISP business, BT Retail) sent the following statement to Cult of Mac:

Over the last two nights, BT has experienced the highest ever traffic levels over the UK broadband network.

Here’s a great tip posted up by the guys over at AppAdvice: if you give Siri a voice command and it doesn’t quite get it right, you can just tap in the text of Siri’s transcription and edit the text. Perfect for the people who find that Siri just can’t stop telling them about Linda.

Cloud computing appears to be the future. But can every company afford their own version of Apple’s iCloud? Although Apple paid $1 billion in 2009 to acquire land for its North Carolina datacenter, that figure is only the ‘downpayment’ required for the tech giant to bring the cloud to millions of customers, according to a Friday report.

Hey, what a shock! The weak link in Apple’s iPhone 4S launch, for the fifth year running? AT&T? Reports abound on Twitter and in the blogosphere that AT&T’s servers are being hammered, preventing users from activating their devices. During this time, the iPhone 4S will return a message saying that “It may take up to 3 minutes to activate your iPhone”… a message which displays for over half an hour in some cases, then falls over.

We’re not seeing similar reports about Verizon or Sprint. Anyone having problems with those two carriers in activating their iPhone 4S? Let us know.

[image via iDownloadBlog]

Check out the amazing difference the iPhone 4S’ new camera makes compared to the iPhone 4’s. Not only are the colors richer and more vibrant, the brights brighter and the darks darker, but the image stabilization is just out of this world. If you rely on your iPhone’s camera a lot, this might be more important than Siri.

[via AppAdvice]

How long are the lines for the iPhone 4S outside of Apple’s iconic 5th Avenue Store? Not that long, actually… well, comparatively. They stretch around the block to FAO Schwartz, but they are nothing compared to the iPad 2’s launch lines: 75% shorter, in fact, TUAW estimates. Then again, the iPad 2 couldn’t be pre-ordered in nearly the abundance of the iPhone 4S: most of the people in line this morning are either there because they want to be, or there because they put off ordering one online for too long.

Apple and Samsung have been trading punches in courts around the globe, with Cupertino claiming that Samsung has ripped off almost every conceivable aspect of their iPhone and iPad intellectual property. Apple has made a strong case, even getting a sales injunction against the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia, but it may be Samsung’s own lawyers who just delivered the K.O… to their own jaw.

How? Reuters is reporting that Samsung’s own lawyers told a US District judge that they couldn’t tell the difference between an iPad and a Galaxy Tab 10.1.

In the tech world, there is not much time to rest on your laurels. With the iPhone 4S flying off shelves, it’s time to turn our attention to the next big thing on the horizon: the iPad 3. The third-generation Apple tablet could appear early next year, according to a Friday report.

Those who queued outside Softbank stores in Japan eager to be the one of first the get their hands on the iPhone 4S today were frustrated when a server glitch caused problems with purchasing for over three hours after the device went on launch. Softbank doors opened at 8 AM especially for the new device, but service wasn’t completely restored until around 11 AM.

Ahead of next week’s fourth quarter earnings report, Apple is expected to announce earning $30 billion, driven by iPhone sales, one analyst told investors Friday. Although Wall Street consensus is for $29.2 billion, the iPhone 4’s release at the end of Apple’s fourth quarter should result in a brighter financial outlook.

People have been waiting all morning in lines around the world for the iPhone 4S, and many readers have sent us in pictures of what’s going on in their line. Just judging from the pictures, this is easily shaping up to be the biggest Apple launch in history.

Got a good picture to send us of your launch day line? Send it to us via email!

One of the most appealing things about Apple’s new iPhone 4S, in addition to that dual-core A5 processor and 8-megapixel camera, is the incredibly impressive Siri assistant. It makes its debut on the new iPhone, and isn’t available on any other device right now. In Apple’s promotional videos, Siri is incredibly impressive and it’s amazed us all, but if you’re outside the United States, Siri may be a disappointment to you.

It appears Apple’s vaunted supply chain may have some kinks in it — at least for Australian users. After pre-ordering the iPhone 4S on Oct. 7, Apple fans in that country may have to wait two weeks for delivery, reports said Friday. Seems Apple gave U.S. and European iPhone 4S pre-orders delivery priority.

Let’s put Antennagate behind us: the new iPhone 4S finally eliminates Death Grip issues once and for all, at least according to iSpazio. Having moved over to a dual antenna design, the iPhone 4S shouldn’t plague anyone with dropped calls just because you “held it the wrong way.”

Looking at our iPhone 4S, it does seem like attenuation has drastically been improved with the new model. What about you? Can you get your iPhone 4S to drop its signal just by holding it the wrong way? Let us know in the comments.

Following months and months of speculation, Apple’s iPhone 4S has finally been launched in the U.S. today, and is now available to through carriers AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, as well as a number of U.S. retailers such as Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and, of course, Apple.

After a record-breaking first day of advanced sales, the iPhone 4S is expected to sell 4 million units during its first weekend, four times greater than the iPhone 4’s initial sales, according to a Friday report.

The past few weeks have seen the passing of a number of computing giants. The world learned this week that Dennis Ritchie, the computer scientist who helped create the UNIX operating system and C programming language, passed away at the age of 70. This software was the progenitor of much of modern computing, including Mac OS X and iOS, and was born (ironically) out of the need to play computer games!

The lines to buy an iPhone 4S are forming across the US with the East coast getting a head start and only 16 minutes before Apple Stores open in the Central Time Zone. By now Apple has issued the proverbial golden tickets to anxious iPhone 4S buyers in those lines. Are you one of the lucky ticket holders?