Rogers Canada was able to minimize the impact of the failure by only having a handful of phones available to them. The flagship Toronto store had a whopping 100 phones available. Limit of 2 per person. Buddy of mine stood in line in the rain. Was fortunate enough to be one of the first 100 people. Oh you are already a loyal Rogers customer...You can't have one. These are only for new customers...We will let you know when you can come back and get one. Better yet just listen to the media and see when more will be available.
So Rogers delivers a turbo knee in the package to existing customers. Note the new Rogers commercial showing Rogers Suits greeting the Rogers customers
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=7vTyVTIvQkk Then, disappoints the potential new ones by screwing up and getting so few phones that they would have been better off to wait....
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.
It should be noted that the average time for a switchover for a phone on a GSM network that is quoted to a customer when switching from handset to handset is 24-48 hours depending on network provisioning and availability. I continue to work in a field where I have access to this data and that is current. So suck it up.
Is this inconvenient? Sure. Did Apple "screw it up"? Well, semantics. I'd prefer to think that they could have done a better job releasing the 2.0 firmware (perhaps yesterday or earlier in the week) to get those issues out of the way for 1.0 customers. If you've absolutely got to bust out a hate-on in an internet-forum-rant kinda way, that's cool. Try to keep the language clean though.
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.
The people who actually use them for business (myself included) are probably the ones actually waiting because they aren't so hell-bent on getting everything all at once. Dude, come on...
Honestly I feel bad for the people who waited in line to be "the first" and I also feel bad for apple and what might be poor planning on their part. Whatever it is, everyone will pull through... everyone will still be getting their iphones and everyone will move on from this experience fairly soon. I really don't see it as the huge problem that everyone's making it out to be.
The people who actually use them for business (myself included) are probably the ones actually waiting because they aren't so hell-bent on getting everything all at once. Dude, come on...
Honestly I feel bad for the people who waited in line to be "the first" and I also feel bad for apple and what might be poor planning on their part. Whatever it is, everyone will pull through... everyone will still be getting their iphones and everyone will move on from this experience fairly soon. I really don't see it as the huge problem that everyone's making it out to be.
Meeks, when I sync'd first thing in my office this morning, as I do every morning, it was APPLE telling me to upgrade. Sure, I could have waited, but I did what APPLE told me to, like the good little mindless mac/iPhone user that corporate Apple wants me to be. Then I'm bricked, for about the first hour-and-a-half of my day. My clients are all conditioned to contact me via my iPhone, as do I them. For super-urgent matters, we managed to get a hold of each other - obviously I have other ways to contact them, and the same with them to me. But the point is, Apple severely disrupted my work, and cost me some unknown and probably unaccountable amount of money this morning - the commodity I provide is J-I-T and mass-marketed with many local competitors another phone-call away. So yeah, I don't know precisely your definition of a "huge problem", but the problem was somewhat huge-ish for me.
Predicting network traffic isn't the only part of surviving this sort of thing. All it takes is some unexpected hardware failures, or other odd variables coming into play -- a very real issue when scaling to something like this, a scenario with demands quite unlike what was known before -- and everything can start to fall apart. I'll wager this is what happened in the background at Apple.
*snip*
Yeah, Apple would have to know how much volume they would draw, right? They how exactly many stores are selling and at what time, and they know how many iPhone v1 and iPod touch units are out there. As with you and the others here, I have to wonder why they would release the 2.0 software update ON THE SAME DAY as the 3G release?? That sure appears to be a thoroughly stupid move! There must have been a major hardware failure here, but Apple should have been ready for this and had the redunandcy ensure this sort of mess didn't happen! They sure screwed this launch day up...
Quote:
Originally Posted by sulli32
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.
No way, that's a huge stretch. Companies would much rather have a great product launch with millions of units sold without a hitch. Especially a company like Apple who is so popular anyways, they will get plenty of media coverage without needing an artifical catastrophe to make it appear there is unprecedented demand.
Quote:
Originally Posted by samab
I am afraid that Apple has followed Microsoft's idiotic path on that one. Microsoft tried to save "tens" of millions of dollars by designing the chipset themselves (which they have no expertise in) --- cost them a billion dollars in the long run.
Apple just bought a chipset company (mainly for their engineers) --- I can just see them trying to save "ten" of millions of dollars by designing the chipset themselves.
WTF? First of all, Apple hasn't even done anything with PA SEMI yet, so how can you say they "follow MS's idiotic path". Secondly, as opposed to the idiots in Redmond, Apple has significant experience with IC/processors engineering with the 68000, PowerPC, ARM variants etc. Not to mention PA SEMI is recognized throughout the industry as a very talented group of engineers. Apple would never do something as stupid as what MS has done with the xBox 360 fiasco.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jblenio
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.
*snip*
I pull out my cash, and the clerk tells me "no cash." "You must use a credit card!"
*snip*
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.
1) Of course they could anticipate much of the sales figures. They just most likely don't have enough phones for everyone, and focused their inventory at Apple stores, assuming the traffic would be higher, and I'm sure they don't mind all the revenue coming from cross sales of accessories.
2) Since you are posting on an Apple fan website, I find it rather INCREDIBLE that you weren't aware you couldn't use cash for an iPhone purchase. Not only has this been the case since the original iPhone 2G was released, it has been mentioned hundreds of times in nearly every post about purchasing an iPhone that has been on any Apple-related website. You went to buy a product on launch day, and didn't bother to take 3 minutes to read any of the dozens of posts about iPhone buying requirements/tips?
3) And what about the "$199 upgrade restrictions"? The only people who can't get an iPhone 3G for $199 are existing AT&T customers who have ALREADY RECEIVED A SUBSIDIZED (DISCOUNTED) PHONE ON THEIR CURRENT CONTRACT. This is how every cell phone carrier has always worked. It wouldn't be fair to AT&T to give you a $300 discount on the new iPhone if you already got a discounted phone on your current contract that you haven't completed. In other words, you haven't "payed off" the subsidy they gave you by finishing your contract. And with most carriers, including AT&T, you don't even actually have to complete the contract. Depending on your monthly payment, they will make you eligible for an upgrade (phone discount) usually after 10-14 months into your contract. And In fact, existing customers who are not eligble for an upgrade ARE GETTING A GREAT DEAL AT $399, considering the no-contract price of the iPhone 3G is $599. In all other cases besides the iPhone 3G, existing customers not eligible for an upgrade have always had to pay the FULL NO-CONTRACT RETAIL PRICE for a new phone, which in this case would be $599!
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
Now itunes tells me 1.1.4 is the current, this is another step backwards in the solution to the 3G iPhone/iPhone 2.0 server crash
wait... what? the 360 uses a IBM PowerPC setup, it's the PS3 that uses it's own proprietary processor system.
Actually, the Xbox 360's "Xenon" processor is much more proprietary than the CellBE chip in the Playstation 3. The Xenon is a custom triple-core PowerPC based chip that hasn't been used in any other application.
The Playstation 3 processor, called the Cell, is a hybrid processor based on one PowerPC core and eight SIMD cores. However, this new architecture was not designed specifically for the playstation 3, and is used in enterprise server blades, coprocessor acceleration boards, and most recently in the fastest supercomputer in the world, which uses thousands of them along with half as many quad-core AMD Opertons.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dannyha
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.
I don't think people are trying to divert the blame entirely, it's just that everyone recognizes the magnitude of something like this and understands that problems do arise. I'm sure Apple knew the demand that was coming and did the best they could. It does not excuse the nightmare that this has created, but it is understandable in the light of so many other launch problems with all companies who do these large product launches.
And the person who is losing business because they tried to upgrade to a new iphone on the launch day is an IDIOT. They should know full well the risk of problems cropping up with switching their exisiting phone line to a new phone, which happens REGUARLY with any cell phone provider even without being done on a major product launch day! You would have to be absolutely brain-dead to do this with a mission-critical communications line!
Quote:
Originally Posted by DestructoTex
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.
Oh give me a break with the fanboyism. Other than owning a 12" PB G4 for a short time back in the day, I don't even own a new Mac yet (had to buy a laptop JUST BEFORE the new Intel Macs came out) and I only started heavily following Apple a few years ago. But I have spent a lot of time becoming familar with the company's history and products, and especially Mac OSX on a development level. But I am just as interested in and committed to Apple as anyone else on this board.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr.Scott
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.
Yep, I agree. Although it does NOT excuse Apple for not having proper redundancy in the event that they had a massive hardware failure, and although Murphy's law can ALWAYS find a way to turn a product launch into a disaster, Most laymen have no idea how difficult it is to plan for something like this.
Estimating demand is not the hard part. Estimating what you are going to need to MEET that demand is the hard part. And even if you have everything tested and in place, one small failure or one small piece overlooked can throw a huge wrench into the issue. Just imagine how complex this whole launch is, with everything from the Apple -> AT&T linkage for account info, to the update and activation servers, and iTunes accounts, etc. The infrastructure must be ridiculous.
Surely this is on a much larger scale than anything I can imagine, but I know the feeling of what Apple's going through ! I run a network of ecommerce websites that I started from the ground up and actually became a programmer and web developer in the process. I've been through it all with software, servers, and disasters! It's just a bit stressing when you run a new ad campaign that results in massive traffic load on your web servers! I agree that Apple should get some help from Google for stuff like this! lol. Both Google and Amazon have unbelievable server capacity!
Quote:
Originally Posted by paxman
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.
Exactly, I agree. Steve Jobs is NOT HAPPY right now. I would not want to be part of the IT infrastructure team right now!
Just updated to version 2.0. Took about 20 minutes. But it works just fine. No bugs, no glitches... and monkey ball is making me dizzy. Too bad about the early issues. I was wondering
how Apple was going to handle all of that VOLUME.... I guess now we know.
Just updated to version 2.0. Took about 20 minutes. But it works just fine. No bugs, no glitches... and Monkey Ball is making me dizzy. Too bad about the early issues. I was wondering
how Apple was going to handle all of that VOLUME.... I guess now we know.
Actually, the Xbox 360's "Xenon" processor is much more proprietary than the CellBE chip in the Playstation 3. The Xenon is a custom triple-core PowerPC based chip that hasn't been used in any other application.
The Playstation 3 processor, called the Cell, is a hybrid processor based on one PowerPC core and eight SIMD cores. However, this new architecture was not designed specifically for the playstation 3, and is used in enterprise server blades, coprocessor acceleration boards, and most recently in the fastest supercomputer in the world, which uses thousands of them along with half as many quad-core AMD Opertons.
I don't think people are trying to divert the blame entirely, it's just that everyone recognizes the magnitude of something like this and understands that problems do arise. I'm sure Apple knew the demand that was coming and did the best they could. It does not excuse the nightmare that this has created, but it is understandable in the light of so many other launch problems with all companies who do these large product launches.
And the person who is losing business because they tried to upgrade to a new iphone on the launch day is an IDIOT. They should know full well the risk of problems cropping up with switching their exisiting phone line to a new phone, which happens REGUARLY with any cell phone provider even without being done on a major product launch day! You would have to be absolutely brain-dead to do this with a mission-critical communications line!
Oh give me a break with the fanboyism. Other than owning a 12" PB G4 for a short time back in the day, I don't even own a new Mac yet (had to buy a laptop JUST BEFORE the new Intel Macs came out) and I only started heavily following Apple a few years ago. But I have spent a lot of time becoming familar with the company's history and products, and especially Mac OSX on a development level. But I am just as interested in and committed to Apple as anyone else on this board.
Yep, I agree. Although it does NOT excuse Apple for not having proper redundancy in the event that they had a massive hardware failure, and although Murphy's law can ALWAYS find a way to turn a product launch into a disaster, Most laymen have no idea how difficult it is to plan for something like this.
Estimating demand is not the hard part. Estimating what you are going to need to MEET that demand is the hard part. And even if you have everything tested and in place, one small failure or one small piece overlooked can throw a huge wrench into the issue. Just imagine how complex this whole launch is, with everything from the Apple -> AT&T linkage for account info, to the update and activation servers, and iTunes accounts, etc. The infrastructure must be ridiculous.
Surely this is on a much larger scale than anything I can imagine, but I know the feeling of what Apple's going through ! I run a network of ecommerce websites that I started from the ground up and actually became a programmer and web developer in the process. I've been through it all with software, servers, and disasters! It's just a bit stressing when you run a new ad campaign that results in massive traffic load on your web servers! I agree that Apple should get some help from Google for stuff like this! lol. Both Google and Amazon have unbelievable server capacity!
Exactly, I agree. Steve Jobs is NOT HAPPY right now. I would not want to be part of the IT infrastructure team right now!
I agree... Don't think anyone at Apple is happy right now. In a few days... we should all be a happier, bigger community of Iphone users.
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.
Perhaps, but not nearly as much as Apple's deployment skills.
And I know if you look back in the archives of these discussion boards you'll find that I'm not alone in the thought that Apple needs to iron out things in Leopard before focusing their attention on Snow Leopard. Besides, it's not like I said to pull a MS and delay it years (or even months). Apple has some very talented resources who have been working very hard for a long time now. I've seen burnout happen and what it can do to a company's core talent. Would a few weeks really kill you if it meant a refreshed team putting out higher quality products for the long haul? [Hint: if you answer yes then I'm going to seriously question your analytical skills.]
The truth is 2 weeks from now everybody will have their iPhones and people will just forget about the iPocalypse.
I tried today to go to AT&T store but once I arrived there and saw the line I just gave up. I figure out 3 more days waiting will not be a big deal. Even if in the end is longer than that, I will survive.
WTF? First of all, Apple hasn't even done anything with PA SEMI yet, so how can you say they "follow MS's idiotic path". Secondly, as opposed to the idiots in Redmond, Apple has significant experience with IC/processors engineering with the 68000, PowerPC, ARM variants etc. Not to mention PA SEMI is recognized throughout the industry as a very talented group of engineers. Apple would never do something as stupid as what MS has done with the xBox 360 fiasco.
Expertise can get fallen behind quickly because your team only design a few ASIC's per year.
Nokia is another example of trying to design their own chips (notably CDMA chipsets so that they don't have to buy them from Qualcomm). Nokia's US market share is down to single digits now.
The best thing that happened to IBM's chip business is Apple abandoning powerpc --- accelerated their custom ASIC business where they rule all 3 consoles.
Perhaps, but not nearly as much as Apple's deployment skills.
And I know if you look back in the archives of these discussion boards you'll find that I'm not alone in the thought that Apple needs to iron out things in Leopard before focusing their attention on Snow Leopard. Besides, it's not like I said to pull a MS and delay it years (or even months). Apple has some very talented resources who have been working very hard for a long time now. I've seen burnout happen and what it can do to a company's core talent. Would a few weeks really kill you if it meant a refreshed team putting out higher quality products for the long haul? [Hint: if you answer yes then I'm going to seriously question your analytical skills.]
You really don't know the state of the team so what you're basing your recommendation on is speculation. This armchair quarterbacking means very little in the real world. You're trying to pilot a ship without knowing where on the water you are or which in which direction your destination lies.
IF the team were overwrought should they delay it? Sure, and they will - look what happened with Leopard; Apple knows when software is ready.
I'm not sure if Steve saw today as one big score but hopefully they'll roll things of this magnitude more gradually in the future.
You'll all soon forget today's launch issues, and by Monday will have maxed out your credit cards in the App Store.
Boo friggin' hoo, your MobileMe update took 40 seconds instead of 30, so then you go to your favorite blog/news site and complain...you're all like Fox News or other media whores, taking a small insignificant, trivial matter and blowing it out of proportion.
Apple has some very talented resources who have been working very hard for a long time now. I've seen burnout happen and what it can do to a company's core talent.
Two of the things it can do is cause them to overlook details and make big mistakes.
I think your concerns are justified. If Apple management is going to conduct a post-debacle
witch-hunt, they need to look into a mirror, not just focus on underlings.
Well, macinthe408, just let go of those anger issues and feel the love. I never cease to be amazed by how something so revolutionary as the internet is reduced to a tool for name calling and berating people from the safety and anonymity of a keyboard and monitor. Wow, that's a big brave act. Maybe we should all just put down our iPhones and turn off our computers and go outside. Otherwise we might end up like macinthe408. Now that is something far worse than the iPhone 2.0 launch fiasco.
Comments
So Rogers delivers a turbo knee in the package to existing customers. Note the new Rogers commercial showing Rogers Suits greeting the Rogers customers
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=7vTyVTIvQkk Then, disappoints the potential new ones by screwing up and getting so few phones that they would have been better off to wait....
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.
It should be noted that the average time for a switchover for a phone on a GSM network that is quoted to a customer when switching from handset to handset is 24-48 hours depending on network provisioning and availability. I continue to work in a field where I have access to this data and that is current. So suck it up.
Is this inconvenient? Sure. Did Apple "screw it up"? Well, semantics. I'd prefer to think that they could have done a better job releasing the 2.0 firmware (perhaps yesterday or earlier in the week) to get those issues out of the way for 1.0 customers. If you've absolutely got to bust out a hate-on in an internet-forum-rant kinda way, that's cool. Try to keep the language clean though.
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.
The people who actually use them for business (myself included) are probably the ones actually waiting because they aren't so hell-bent on getting everything all at once. Dude, come on...
Honestly I feel bad for the people who waited in line to be "the first" and I also feel bad for apple and what might be poor planning on their part. Whatever it is, everyone will pull through... everyone will still be getting their iphones and everyone will move on from this experience fairly soon. I really don't see it as the huge problem that everyone's making it out to be.
What, no Newton? What kind of a fanboy are you, anyway?
I bought a Newton in 93, I broke the screen and couldn't justify a new one.
The people who actually use them for business (myself included) are probably the ones actually waiting because they aren't so hell-bent on getting everything all at once. Dude, come on...
Honestly I feel bad for the people who waited in line to be "the first" and I also feel bad for apple and what might be poor planning on their part. Whatever it is, everyone will pull through... everyone will still be getting their iphones and everyone will move on from this experience fairly soon. I really don't see it as the huge problem that everyone's making it out to be.
Meeks, when I sync'd first thing in my office this morning, as I do every morning, it was APPLE telling me to upgrade. Sure, I could have waited, but I did what APPLE told me to, like the good little mindless mac/iPhone user that corporate Apple wants me to be.
Other than that, life is good, right?
and all your business is done over the phone?
Somebody call the Five-oh, I think we found the hook up.
Predicting network traffic isn't the only part of surviving this sort of thing. All it takes is some unexpected hardware failures, or other odd variables coming into play -- a very real issue when scaling to something like this, a scenario with demands quite unlike what was known before -- and everything can start to fall apart. I'll wager this is what happened in the background at Apple.
*snip*
Yeah, Apple would have to know how much volume they would draw, right? They how exactly many stores are selling and at what time, and they know how many iPhone v1 and iPod touch units are out there. As with you and the others here, I have to wonder why they would release the 2.0 software update ON THE SAME DAY as the 3G release?? That sure appears to be a thoroughly stupid move! There must have been a major hardware failure here, but Apple should have been ready for this and had the redunandcy ensure this sort of mess didn't happen! They sure screwed this launch day up...
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.
No way, that's a huge stretch. Companies would much rather have a great product launch with millions of units sold without a hitch. Especially a company like Apple who is so popular anyways, they will get plenty of media coverage without needing an artifical catastrophe to make it appear there is unprecedented demand.
I am afraid that Apple has followed Microsoft's idiotic path on that one. Microsoft tried to save "tens" of millions of dollars by designing the chipset themselves (which they have no expertise in) --- cost them a billion dollars in the long run.
Apple just bought a chipset company (mainly for their engineers) --- I can just see them trying to save "ten" of millions of dollars by designing the chipset themselves.
WTF? First of all, Apple hasn't even done anything with PA SEMI yet, so how can you say they "follow MS's idiotic path". Secondly, as opposed to the idiots in Redmond, Apple has significant experience with IC/processors engineering with the 68000, PowerPC, ARM variants etc. Not to mention PA SEMI is recognized throughout the industry as a very talented group of engineers. Apple would never do something as stupid as what MS has done with the xBox 360 fiasco.
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.
*snip*
I pull out my cash, and the clerk tells me "no cash." "You must use a credit card!"
*snip*
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.
1) Of course they could anticipate much of the sales figures. They just most likely don't have enough phones for everyone, and focused their inventory at Apple stores, assuming the traffic would be higher, and I'm sure they don't mind all the revenue coming from cross sales of accessories.
2) Since you are posting on an Apple fan website, I find it rather INCREDIBLE that you weren't aware you couldn't use cash for an iPhone purchase. Not only has this been the case since the original iPhone 2G was released, it has been mentioned hundreds of times in nearly every post about purchasing an iPhone that has been on any Apple-related website. You went to buy a product on launch day, and didn't bother to take 3 minutes to read any of the dozens of posts about iPhone buying requirements/tips?
3) And what about the "$199 upgrade restrictions"? The only people who can't get an iPhone 3G for $199 are existing AT&T customers who have ALREADY RECEIVED A SUBSIDIZED (DISCOUNTED) PHONE ON THEIR CURRENT CONTRACT. This is how every cell phone carrier has always worked. It wouldn't be fair to AT&T to give you a $300 discount on the new iPhone if you already got a discounted phone on your current contract that you haven't completed. In other words, you haven't "payed off" the subsidy they gave you by finishing your contract. And with most carriers, including AT&T, you don't even actually have to complete the contract. Depending on your monthly payment, they will make you eligible for an upgrade (phone discount) usually after 10-14 months into your contract. And In fact, existing customers who are not eligble for an upgrade ARE GETTING A GREAT DEAL AT $399, considering the no-contract price of the iPhone 3G is $599. In all other cases besides the iPhone 3G, existing customers not eligible for an upgrade have always had to pay the FULL NO-CONTRACT RETAIL PRICE for a new phone, which in this case would be $599!
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
Now itunes tells me 1.1.4 is the current, this is another step backwards in the solution to the 3G iPhone/iPhone 2.0 server crash
Now itunes tells me 1.1.4 is the current, this is another step backwards in the solution to the 3G iPhone/iPhone 2.0 server crash
now it recognizes 2.0 again, but i still can't download...
wait... what? the 360 uses a IBM PowerPC setup, it's the PS3 that uses it's own proprietary processor system.
Actually, the Xbox 360's "Xenon" processor is much more proprietary than the CellBE chip in the Playstation 3. The Xenon is a custom triple-core PowerPC based chip that hasn't been used in any other application.
The Playstation 3 processor, called the Cell, is a hybrid processor based on one PowerPC core and eight SIMD cores. However, this new architecture was not designed specifically for the playstation 3, and is used in enterprise server blades, coprocessor acceleration boards, and most recently in the fastest supercomputer in the world, which uses thousands of them along with half as many quad-core AMD Opertons.
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.
I don't think people are trying to divert the blame entirely, it's just that everyone recognizes the magnitude of something like this and understands that problems do arise. I'm sure Apple knew the demand that was coming and did the best they could. It does not excuse the nightmare that this has created, but it is understandable in the light of so many other launch problems with all companies who do these large product launches.
And the person who is losing business because they tried to upgrade to a new iphone on the launch day is an IDIOT. They should know full well the risk of problems cropping up with switching their exisiting phone line to a new phone, which happens REGUARLY with any cell phone provider even without being done on a major product launch day! You would have to be absolutely brain-dead to do this with a mission-critical communications line!
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.
Oh give me a break with the fanboyism. Other than owning a 12" PB G4 for a short time back in the day, I don't even own a new Mac yet (had to buy a laptop JUST BEFORE the new Intel Macs came out) and I only started heavily following Apple a few years ago. But I have spent a lot of time becoming familar with the company's history and products, and especially Mac OSX on a development level. But I am just as interested in and committed to Apple as anyone else on this board.
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.
Yep, I agree. Although it does NOT excuse Apple for not having proper redundancy in the event that they had a massive hardware failure, and although Murphy's law can ALWAYS find a way to turn a product launch into a disaster, Most laymen have no idea how difficult it is to plan for something like this.
Estimating demand is not the hard part. Estimating what you are going to need to MEET that demand is the hard part. And even if you have everything tested and in place, one small failure or one small piece overlooked can throw a huge wrench into the issue. Just imagine how complex this whole launch is, with everything from the Apple -> AT&T linkage for account info, to the update and activation servers, and iTunes accounts, etc. The infrastructure must be ridiculous.
Surely this is on a much larger scale than anything I can imagine, but I know the feeling of what Apple's going through ! I run a network of ecommerce websites that I started from the ground up and actually became a programmer and web developer in the process. I've been through it all with software, servers, and disasters! It's just a bit stressing when you run a new ad campaign that results in massive traffic load on your web servers! I agree that Apple should get some help from Google for stuff like this! lol. Both Google and Amazon have unbelievable server capacity!
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.
Exactly, I agree. Steve Jobs is NOT HAPPY right now. I would not want to be part of the IT infrastructure team right now!
how Apple was going to handle all of that VOLUME.... I guess now we know.
how Apple was going to handle all of that VOLUME.... I guess now we know.
Actually, the Xbox 360's "Xenon" processor is much more proprietary than the CellBE chip in the Playstation 3. The Xenon is a custom triple-core PowerPC based chip that hasn't been used in any other application.
The Playstation 3 processor, called the Cell, is a hybrid processor based on one PowerPC core and eight SIMD cores. However, this new architecture was not designed specifically for the playstation 3, and is used in enterprise server blades, coprocessor acceleration boards, and most recently in the fastest supercomputer in the world, which uses thousands of them along with half as many quad-core AMD Opertons.
I don't think people are trying to divert the blame entirely, it's just that everyone recognizes the magnitude of something like this and understands that problems do arise. I'm sure Apple knew the demand that was coming and did the best they could. It does not excuse the nightmare that this has created, but it is understandable in the light of so many other launch problems with all companies who do these large product launches.
And the person who is losing business because they tried to upgrade to a new iphone on the launch day is an IDIOT. They should know full well the risk of problems cropping up with switching their exisiting phone line to a new phone, which happens REGUARLY with any cell phone provider even without being done on a major product launch day! You would have to be absolutely brain-dead to do this with a mission-critical communications line!
Oh give me a break with the fanboyism. Other than owning a 12" PB G4 for a short time back in the day, I don't even own a new Mac yet (had to buy a laptop JUST BEFORE the new Intel Macs came out) and I only started heavily following Apple a few years ago. But I have spent a lot of time becoming familar with the company's history and products, and especially Mac OSX on a development level. But I am just as interested in and committed to Apple as anyone else on this board.
Yep, I agree. Although it does NOT excuse Apple for not having proper redundancy in the event that they had a massive hardware failure, and although Murphy's law can ALWAYS find a way to turn a product launch into a disaster, Most laymen have no idea how difficult it is to plan for something like this.
Estimating demand is not the hard part. Estimating what you are going to need to MEET that demand is the hard part. And even if you have everything tested and in place, one small failure or one small piece overlooked can throw a huge wrench into the issue. Just imagine how complex this whole launch is, with everything from the Apple -> AT&T linkage for account info, to the update and activation servers, and iTunes accounts, etc. The infrastructure must be ridiculous.
Surely this is on a much larger scale than anything I can imagine, but I know the feeling of what Apple's going through ! I run a network of ecommerce websites that I started from the ground up and actually became a programmer and web developer in the process. I've been through it all with software, servers, and disasters! It's just a bit stressing when you run a new ad campaign that results in massive traffic load on your web servers! I agree that Apple should get some help from Google for stuff like this! lol. Both Google and Amazon have unbelievable server capacity!
Exactly, I agree. Steve Jobs is NOT HAPPY right now. I would not want to be part of the IT infrastructure team right now!
I agree... Don't think anyone at Apple is happy right now. In a few days... we should all be a happier, bigger community of Iphone users.
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.
Perhaps, but not nearly as much as Apple's deployment skills.
And I know if you look back in the archives of these discussion boards you'll find that I'm not alone in the thought that Apple needs to iron out things in Leopard before focusing their attention on Snow Leopard. Besides, it's not like I said to pull a MS and delay it years (or even months). Apple has some very talented resources who have been working very hard for a long time now. I've seen burnout happen and what it can do to a company's core talent. Would a few weeks really kill you if it meant a refreshed team putting out higher quality products for the long haul? [Hint: if you answer yes then I'm going to seriously question your analytical skills.]
I tried today to go to AT&T store but once I arrived there and saw the line I just gave up. I figure out 3 more days waiting will not be a big deal. Even if in the end is longer than that, I will survive.
Chill out people. It's just a phone.
WTF? First of all, Apple hasn't even done anything with PA SEMI yet, so how can you say they "follow MS's idiotic path". Secondly, as opposed to the idiots in Redmond, Apple has significant experience with IC/processors engineering with the 68000, PowerPC, ARM variants etc. Not to mention PA SEMI is recognized throughout the industry as a very talented group of engineers. Apple would never do something as stupid as what MS has done with the xBox 360 fiasco.
Expertise can get fallen behind quickly because your team only design a few ASIC's per year.
Nokia is another example of trying to design their own chips (notably CDMA chipsets so that they don't have to buy them from Qualcomm). Nokia's US market share is down to single digits now.
The best thing that happened to IBM's chip business is Apple abandoning powerpc --- accelerated their custom ASIC business where they rule all 3 consoles.
Perhaps, but not nearly as much as Apple's deployment skills.
And I know if you look back in the archives of these discussion boards you'll find that I'm not alone in the thought that Apple needs to iron out things in Leopard before focusing their attention on Snow Leopard. Besides, it's not like I said to pull a MS and delay it years (or even months). Apple has some very talented resources who have been working very hard for a long time now. I've seen burnout happen and what it can do to a company's core talent. Would a few weeks really kill you if it meant a refreshed team putting out higher quality products for the long haul? [Hint: if you answer yes then I'm going to seriously question your analytical skills.]
You really don't know the state of the team so what you're basing your recommendation on is speculation. This armchair quarterbacking means very little in the real world. You're trying to pilot a ship without knowing where on the water you are or which in which direction your destination lies.
IF the team were overwrought should they delay it? Sure, and they will - look what happened with Leopard; Apple knows when software is ready.
I'm not sure if Steve saw today as one big score but hopefully they'll roll things of this magnitude more gradually in the future.
You'll all soon forget today's launch issues, and by Monday will have maxed out your credit cards in the App Store.
Boo friggin' hoo, your MobileMe update took 40 seconds instead of 30, so then you go to your favorite blog/news site and complain...you're all like Fox News or other media whores, taking a small insignificant, trivial matter and blowing it out of proportion.
Apple has some very talented resources who have been working very hard for a long time now. I've seen burnout happen and what it can do to a company's core talent.
Two of the things it can do is cause them to overlook details and make big mistakes.
I think your concerns are justified. If Apple management is going to conduct a post-debacle
witch-hunt, they need to look into a mirror, not just focus on underlings.