I am a loyal apple customer, and always have been encouraging people to pay attention to how well -thought out apple executes product unveilings and launches.
I bet Steve Jobs has like an elitist attitude about how dominant his products are to his competitors, but with this nightmare on their hands, i wish i could just be a fly on the wall at cupertino right now.
I bet apple managers and executives are freaking out and probably feel like a bomb just went off and there is panic and chaos and looting happening @ apple. hahaha nobody is invincible, not even apple
I would bet even if Apple predicted it would have server issues, they decided not to fix it. It might make first day buyers upset, but it makes a very good news story. Lots of free advertising.
I usually see more launch articles about shortages, server issue, etc then articles about launches with no problems and more than enough product to go around.
That is not Apple's style at all. They don't choose negative advertising. The impression is that Apple servers and apple server software is not up to par. It looks un-professional. If Apple really is trying to get a foothold in the enterprise world this looks pretty bad, both from a management pov and from a software, hardware pov. If they knew this would happen they would have staggered the event, somehow.
Imagine what we would have said if this was Microsoft? I think all these problems have to do with Apple's recent growth. This is much bigger scale than what they are used to. This has affected a LOT of people. It will all be sorted but I doubt we'll see a similar kind of event. Too ambitious. Jobs loves the big bang type launches and I am sure he is well and truly pissed.
Perhaps something along the lines of "Hey, about that whole trying to launch the most desired piece of consumer electronics in the world while simultaneously updating it's older brother and it's nearest cousins with software in the same vein and also relaunching our email/calendar/online storage services in one fell swoop..."
"Sorry. Hope you guys are diggin' it now. Cheers."
MobileMe issues, v2.0 issues, activation issues... geez! I understand that there is a lot going on but Apple seems to more an more frequently fail to give itself any breathing room.
Well, if I was y'all I wouldn't be too angry and annoyed over Apple about this. Knowing how Steve Jobs reacts to incompetence by his staff he is probably chopping the heads of those at fault right this second. Flames are probably coming out of his nostrils and all! \
there's still about 250 people in line outside the downtown SF Apple store ... what patience. me, i'll wait until 12 am tonight PDT to try to upgrade my 2G. should have slowed down by then.
Oh, geez. Using an Apple ][ in grade school because you had to doesn't make you an Apple user. When did you first DECIDE to start using Apple products ... and pay for them? That's the question.
Well thank you for your kind comment, here is list of some personal computers I've owned:
1980: Apple IIe
1981: ZX-81
1982: C-64
1985: Fat Mac 512KB (I still have it)
1988: C-128
1990: C-Amiga 1000
1991: Macintosh II ci
1993: Macintosh PowerBook Duo (I still have it)
1994: Macintosh Quadra 840
2000: PowerBook G3 Pismo
2002: PowerMac G4 Quicksilver (I still have it)
2004: PowerBook 12" G4 (I still have it)
Installed 4x OS 8&9 Servers, 4x OSX Servers (v.10.1 to 10.4), 5x Windows NT&2003 Servers, 3x Linux Web Servers.
Apple really didn't impress me today. First, I walk into the ATT store to purchase an iPhone, and the retail rep. tells me they are all out of phones. He told me there were 200 people on line at 8:00am and that they soon ran out of supply.
Are you kidding me? ATT and Apple couldn't anticipate the need for more units on opening day? What the F is that? They only had 200 or so units in stock for the store I went to? Unbelievable that Apple and ATT would not accommodate the obvious rush of people who will want to buy it on day one.
Then, after learning ATT was out of stock at that store, I proceeded to begin the process of making my purchase with a ship date to be received at that same ATT store the following week. I pull out my cash, and the clerk tells me "no cash." "You must use a credit card!"
What the F? I have to use a credit card! I can't buy it cash. That's f&%*ing bull$#!t. They wouldn't even take the $100 ATT Debit card I received from ATT.
Then, I get home to read online that Apples servers are all crashed, and people can't activate their new phones, and the people with the old phones are all off line.
I'll blame this primarily on Apple. They really F'd this up. Their overly managed control of this entire roll out is a cluster F. It's as if Apple thinks they are king of the world and they must over-micromanage everything, to the point of screwing it all up.
I'm very disappointed with my entire iPhone experience. Apple has over managed everything and really made it inconvenient for the consumer in every way. From the $199.00 upgrade restrictions to their inconsideration of the effects on their first generation iPhone users.
Well put. You bring a statement to the table that most people have not thought about. I've been in your shoes before (not quite the 300,000 online customers) and you?re darn right about not expecting the unexpected. Scary as hell not knowing what?s going to happen and you are the man or women with all the answers to all the questions you don?t know the answers to. Man, so many folks don?t get it because they haven?t been there. I say, just wait a week and life will be back to normal and a lot of folks will be happy with there new iPhone. Again, great post.
Fortunately, not all 300,000 customers logged on at once; if that had happened our servers would have crashed or the service would have been on and off. We had what we believed to be good estimates and test scenarios but we were still surprised by how many people logged on to the system within the first 10 minutes, about 5000.
We discovered from the experience that when a company says a service will be available at a certain time they (customers) expect it to be perfect and fast. This is sort of expectation seems to becoming more important to customers as we are more dependent on mobile connectivity (not necessarily a bad or wrong expectation). And unfortunately, I think Apple underestimated this expectation and considering that this is the second high profile launch they should have expected this sort of problem could arise and perhaps staggered the release of MoblieMe, iPod Touch, and iPhone 3G.
If that's the case, you must know that the company has screwed up many other years far worse than this.
I disagree. Sure they've had the bombs (Cube, 20th Anniversary Mac), mis-steps (Pippin), growing pains (transition to OS X), and bad PR (iPod batteries). And even when they had cases of software updates causing data loss only affect a very small percentage of users. I've been using Apple computers and been a fan since the Apple II. The last three days of MobileMe and iPhone issues is by far the the biggest end-user impacting problem I can remember Apple ever happening.
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipsism
MobileMe issues, v2.0 issues, activation issues... geez! I understand that there is a lot going on but Apple seems to more an more frequently fail to give itself any breathing room.
Yes, I think Apple may have grown too big for its britches. Ever since they announced the delay of Leopard to allow them to finish the iPhone on time last year they seem to be falling farther and farther behind their own ambitions. Companies often decline after they expand too fast (Krispy Kreme anyone?).
It may be time for Apple to take a step back and take a deep, collective breath. Put Snow Leopard on hold a short while to get their wits about them and get their bearings. There's a chance the the iPhone problems were contributed to by resources being distracted by the MobileMe fiasco. Time to spend some of those billions of dollars of cash they have lying around in strengthening their infrastructure and resources. It's time to buy some bigger britches.
Well thank you for your kind comment, here is list of some personal computers I've owned:
1980: Apple IIe
1981: ZX-81
1982: C-64
1985: Fat Mac 512KB (I still have it)
1988: C-128
1990: C-Amiga 1000
1991: Macintosh II ci
1993: Macintosh PowerBook Duo (I still have it)
1994: Macintosh Quadra 840
2000: PowerBook G3 Pismo
2002: PowerMac G4 Quicksilver (I still have it)
2004: PowerBook 12" G4 (I still have it)
Installed 4x OS 8&9 Servers, 4x OSX Servers (v.10.1 to 10.4), 5x Windows NT&2003 Servers, 3x Linux Web Servers.
A little more than grade school wouldn't you say?
You wrangled with the trackball on a Duo as well as installed OS 9 Servers and THIS gets under your skin? PERSPECTIVE, man! PERSPECTIVE!
John Blenio, San Jose, California - sorry to hear you didn't get a phone today, bro. It should probably be mentioned that it was commonly known that they weren't taking cash for them, but don't let that shake your rage - you've got a right to be up in arms so you up in those arms! Your unspoken (or in this case, typed) anger will surely stir the gods in Cupertino to... well... probably count another stack of fifties. But hey, you probably feel better now that you've got that off your chest... right?
I find it interesting some of you people deem it necessary to still back up Apple after this, saying they didn't screw up, they couldn't expect that this would all happen. Yeah, they didn't screw up--they royally rainbowed up with this one. No excuse for this to happen. It's just a phone? Some people's lives and businesses live primarily because of their phones. Half a day without a phone can potentially cost thousands of dollars of business, so I don't particularly disagree with people who might want compensation, but that's just me.
itunes now regognizes that version 2.0 exists and i click update then a small window appears and asks to cancel or learn more, then the store starts loading then 2 seconds later i am back to my ipod screen where it all started.
But this is progress, half an hour ago it told me that 1.1.4 was the current version
It may be time for Apple to take a step back and take a deep, collective breath. Put Snow Leopard on hold a short while to get their wits about them and get their bearings...
I don't believe I'm alone when I say I'm glad you're not in charge of things over there. Your analytical skills appear to need a little more time in the oven to bake.
itunes now regognizes that version 2.0 exists and i click update then a small window appears and asks to cancel or learn more, then the store starts loading then 2 seconds later i am back to my ipod screen where it all started.
But this is progress, half an hour ago it told me that 1.1.4 was the current version
Comments
I bet Steve Jobs has like an elitist attitude about how dominant his products are to his competitors, but with this nightmare on their hands, i wish i could just be a fly on the wall at cupertino right now.
I bet apple managers and executives are freaking out and probably feel like a bomb just went off and there is panic and chaos and looting happening @ apple. hahaha nobody is invincible, not even apple
I would bet even if Apple predicted it would have server issues, they decided not to fix it. It might make first day buyers upset, but it makes a very good news story. Lots of free advertising.
I usually see more launch articles about shortages, server issue, etc then articles about launches with no problems and more than enough product to go around.
That is not Apple's style at all. They don't choose negative advertising. The impression is that Apple servers and apple server software is not up to par. It looks un-professional. If Apple really is trying to get a foothold in the enterprise world this looks pretty bad, both from a management pov and from a software, hardware pov. If they knew this would happen they would have staggered the event, somehow.
Imagine what we would have said if this was Microsoft? I think all these problems have to do with Apple's recent growth. This is much bigger scale than what they are used to. This has affected a LOT of people. It will all be sorted but I doubt we'll see a similar kind of event. Too ambitious. Jobs loves the big bang type launches and I am sure he is well and truly pissed.
"Sorry. Hope you guys are diggin' it now. Cheers."
Just finally got my new iphone working. around 3PM EST, after trying for 5 hours!!!! But I'm glad I'm done with the hassle
Tried it at 5:30pm ET and I got right in and activated the 2G phone.
It appears the traffic has eased or they (apple) threw some more servers/bandwidth at
the day long problem....
Bob
Oh, geez. Using an Apple ][ in grade school because you had to doesn't make you an Apple user. When did you first DECIDE to start using Apple products ... and pay for them? That's the question.
Well thank you for your kind comment, here is list of some personal computers I've owned:
1980: Apple IIe
1981: ZX-81
1982: C-64
1985: Fat Mac 512KB (I still have it)
1988: C-128
1990: C-Amiga 1000
1991: Macintosh II ci
1993: Macintosh PowerBook Duo (I still have it)
1994: Macintosh Quadra 840
2000: PowerBook G3 Pismo
2002: PowerMac G4 Quicksilver (I still have it)
2004: PowerBook 12" G4 (I still have it)
Installed 4x OS 8&9 Servers, 4x OSX Servers (v.10.1 to 10.4), 5x Windows NT&2003 Servers, 3x Linux Web Servers.
A little more than grade school wouldn't you say?
Are you kidding me? ATT and Apple couldn't anticipate the need for more units on opening day? What the F is that? They only had 200 or so units in stock for the store I went to? Unbelievable that Apple and ATT would not accommodate the obvious rush of people who will want to buy it on day one.
Then, after learning ATT was out of stock at that store, I proceeded to begin the process of making my purchase with a ship date to be received at that same ATT store the following week. I pull out my cash, and the clerk tells me "no cash." "You must use a credit card!"
What the F? I have to use a credit card! I can't buy it cash. That's f&%*ing bull$#!t. They wouldn't even take the $100 ATT Debit card I received from ATT.
Then, I get home to read online that Apples servers are all crashed, and people can't activate their new phones, and the people with the old phones are all off line.
I'll blame this primarily on Apple. They really F'd this up. Their overly managed control of this entire roll out is a cluster F. It's as if Apple thinks they are king of the world and they must over-micromanage everything, to the point of screwing it all up.
I'm very disappointed with my entire iPhone experience. Apple has over managed everything and really made it inconvenient for the consumer in every way. From the $199.00 upgrade restrictions to their inconsideration of the effects on their first generation iPhone users.
Wow!
John Blenio
San Jose, California
Apple hasn't stolen your family from you in the dead of night. They haven't killed your cat.
They simply introduced you to what launch day of a popular product is like.
You will live.
We are not talking about the CPU, there are a million other chips on the xbox 360 board.
Read this eetimes article about how Microsoft "tried" to save tens of millions, but actually cost them a billion dollars extra.
http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/s...leID=208403010
I am afraid that Apple is following Microsoft's idiotic path.
You are assuming Apple will make the same mistakes.
I'll wager that is a rather poor assumption.
Well thank you for your kind comment, here is list of some personal computers I've owned:
1980: Apple IIe
1981: ZX-81
1982: C-64
1985: Fat Mac 512KB (I still have it)
1988: C-128
1990: C-Amiga 1000
1991: Macintosh II ci
1993: Macintosh PowerBook Duo (I still have it)
1994: Macintosh Quadra 840
2000: PowerBook G3 Pismo
2002: PowerMac G4 Quicksilver (I still have it)
2004: PowerBook 12" G4 (I still have it)
Installed 4x OS 8&9 Servers, 4x OSX Servers (v.10.1 to 10.4), 5x Windows NT&2003 Servers, 3x Linux Web Servers.
A little more than grade school wouldn't you say?
What, no Newton? What kind of a fanboy are you, anyway?
Well put. You bring a statement to the table that most people have not thought about. I've been in your shoes before (not quite the 300,000 online customers) and you?re darn right about not expecting the unexpected. Scary as hell not knowing what?s going to happen and you are the man or women with all the answers to all the questions you don?t know the answers to. Man, so many folks don?t get it because they haven?t been there. I say, just wait a week and life will be back to normal and a lot of folks will be happy with there new iPhone. Again, great post.
Fortunately, not all 300,000 customers logged on at once; if that had happened our servers would have crashed or the service would have been on and off. We had what we believed to be good estimates and test scenarios but we were still surprised by how many people logged on to the system within the first 10 minutes, about 5000.
We discovered from the experience that when a company says a service will be available at a certain time they (customers) expect it to be perfect and fast. This is sort of expectation seems to becoming more important to customers as we are more dependent on mobile connectivity (not necessarily a bad or wrong expectation). And unfortunately, I think Apple underestimated this expectation and considering that this is the second high profile launch they should have expected this sort of problem could arise and perhaps staggered the release of MoblieMe, iPod Touch, and iPhone 3G.
If that's the case, you must know that the company has screwed up many other years far worse than this.
I disagree. Sure they've had the bombs (Cube, 20th Anniversary Mac), mis-steps (Pippin), growing pains (transition to OS X), and bad PR (iPod batteries). And even when they had cases of software updates causing data loss only affect a very small percentage of users. I've been using Apple computers and been a fan since the Apple II. The last three days of MobileMe and iPhone issues is by far the the biggest end-user impacting problem I can remember Apple ever happening.
MobileMe issues, v2.0 issues, activation issues... geez! I understand that there is a lot going on but Apple seems to more an more frequently fail to give itself any breathing room.
Yes, I think Apple may have grown too big for its britches. Ever since they announced the delay of Leopard to allow them to finish the iPhone on time last year they seem to be falling farther and farther behind their own ambitions. Companies often decline after they expand too fast (Krispy Kreme anyone?).
It may be time for Apple to take a step back and take a deep, collective breath. Put Snow Leopard on hold a short while to get their wits about them and get their bearings. There's a chance the the iPhone problems were contributed to by resources being distracted by the MobileMe fiasco. Time to spend some of those billions of dollars of cash they have lying around in strengthening their infrastructure and resources. It's time to buy some bigger britches.
Well thank you for your kind comment, here is list of some personal computers I've owned:
1980: Apple IIe
1981: ZX-81
1982: C-64
1985: Fat Mac 512KB (I still have it)
1988: C-128
1990: C-Amiga 1000
1991: Macintosh II ci
1993: Macintosh PowerBook Duo (I still have it)
1994: Macintosh Quadra 840
2000: PowerBook G3 Pismo
2002: PowerMac G4 Quicksilver (I still have it)
2004: PowerBook 12" G4 (I still have it)
Installed 4x OS 8&9 Servers, 4x OSX Servers (v.10.1 to 10.4), 5x Windows NT&2003 Servers, 3x Linux Web Servers.
A little more than grade school wouldn't you say?
You wrangled with the trackball on a Duo as well as installed OS 9 Servers and THIS gets under your skin? PERSPECTIVE, man! PERSPECTIVE!
John Blenio, San Jose, California - sorry to hear you didn't get a phone today, bro. It should probably be mentioned that it was commonly known that they weren't taking cash for them, but don't let that shake your rage - you've got a right to be up in arms so you up in those arms! Your unspoken (or in this case, typed) anger will surely stir the gods in Cupertino to... well... probably count another stack of fifties. But hey, you probably feel better now that you've got that off your chest... right?
But this is progress, half an hour ago it told me that 1.1.4 was the current version
It may be time for Apple to take a step back and take a deep, collective breath. Put Snow Leopard on hold a short while to get their wits about them and get their bearings...
I don't believe I'm alone when I say I'm glad you're not in charge of things over there. Your analytical skills appear to need a little more time in the oven to bake.
itunes now regognizes that version 2.0 exists and i click update then a small window appears and asks to cancel or learn more, then the store starts loading then 2 seconds later i am back to my ipod screen where it all started.
But this is progress, half an hour ago it told me that 1.1.4 was the current version
Same here...