"The UK iPhone 3G launch has begun, with queues of customers reported outside stores across the country - but there's been some bad times to temper the good.
At the O2 store on Oxford Street, 67 people were in the queue at around 7.30am this morning; round the corner at Apple Regent Street there were 100 souls.
Bluewater shopping centre saw 60 people waiting in line at the O2 shop, with maybe five hanging around outside of the Apple store there. North of the border in Glasgow, 50 people queued outside the O2 shop on Argyle Street at 7.30 am.
As 8.02 am approached, excited crowds began surging forward, and shops across the country opened their doors; the first shoppers walked in... and then came the big wait.
"Yeah the computers went down about 8.2oam," explained Hugh Donaghy from the line at the Glasgow O2 store. Having purchased his phone, Donaghy trudged to work, and now appears to be in iLimbo. "I have paid, and signed my contract, yet am at work waiting for the O2 authorisation, which they (Carphone Warehouse) are going to phone me with..."
A person in the Oxford Street queue experienced the same thing: "The first people went in and it took 45 minutes - the credit check thing failed, the computer registration failed, same deal at the Apple store. It took maybe an hour before the first purchase came out. Twenty minutes ago they took to paper and pen.
O2's UK press office this morning confirmed that all its shops were affected by a system outage, "Systems were a bit slower than normal earlier in the morning," a company representative said, "but this due to huge simultaneous customer demand."
"There has been a phenomenal response, interest has been extraordinary," the representative said. Apple staff are saying the problem is with 02's servers being unable to cope with demand.
Otherwise ordering and processing time should be at around 20 minutes per customer, the PR explained. Macworld's man at O2's Oxford Street shop is currently seeing the location sort through approximately 15 people per hour, with O2 reps walking through the queue explaining they have plenty of phones. Upgrade customers are being served faster.
Credit checks also failed at Bluewater this morning, where our witnesses now explain O2 staff have resorted to plan B - using pen and paper to get customer details and bringing out application forms for those already in the queue to fill in while they wait.
Reports from iPhone launches outside the UK also confirm around a 20 minute period for each sale, as the iPhone is authorised and new or upgrading accounts approved.
Back in Glasgow, Macworld can also confirm the approval system continued to have faults, causing lengthy delays with reports of some customers becoming fractious as a result.
"One total muppet lost his rag with the manager," an eye-witness said, "there's always one," he added.
At the O2 shop on Argyle St, Glasgow, and round the corner at the Carphone Warehouse shop, reports suggest highly limited supplies of the 16GB iPhone 3G. "I was third in the queue at Carphone Warehouse. When we got into the shop, the guy in front of me bought the only 16GB iPhone they had in stock.
"The guy in the shop said that each Carphone Warehouse had received only one 16GB model," our witness added.
UPDATE: The system seems under considerable strain. iPhone shoppers at the Bluewater Apple retail store are being asked if they'd like to reserve their products for later collection, because, we're told, Apple has so far been unable to complete the approval/activation procedure for anyone this morning at its Bluewater store.
UPDATE: Reports claim Apple staff couldn't access the O2 phone network's activation system, and that the O2 system only worked with Internet Explorer."
Yeah, i don't see this so much as a fail than Apple not being adequately prepared for the huge demand on launch day. In that way, yes, they did fail and drop the ball. Why didn't they just have activation via iTunes? They've had time to work out the previous bugs and perfect the system.
UPDATE: Reports claim Apple staff couldn't access the O2 phone network's activation system, and that the O2 system only worked with Internet Explorer."
I was first in the queue at Carphone Warehouse this morning at 5am. Found out that all 16gb had been reserved the day before for customers to get out of bed when they like.
Didn't get my iphone until 13.30 (had to go to work for an hour whilst they waiting for the systems to work). Got home and now the itunes doesn't work, keeps returning an error. So after 12 hours and being the first in store i have a pathetic 8gb iPhone that still isn't working.
I was first in the queue at Carphone Warehouse this morning at 5am. Found out that all 16gb had been reserved the day before for customers to get out of bed when they like.
Didn't get my iphone until 13.30 (had to go to work for an hour whilst they waiting for the systems to work). Got home and now the itunes doesn't work, keeps returning an error. So after 12 hours and being the first in store i have a pathetic 8gb iPhone that still isn't working.
someone feel sorry for me please!!!!
Mr. Bullet, I waited 25 hours for an iPhone 3g white 16gb. I am in the press regarding the first lone person camping out at Apple Store London Regent Street... At 8am I was in the first 20 of the queue. All 20 of us waited from 8am to about almost 12pm to get our activation going.
Then despite having all the documents and the Specialist typing in the exact same form into the system about 20 times over 4 hours, then finally O2 said my contract was declined. = Fail, no iPhone 3G white 16gb for me. I then went home.
I empathise, and let's have group hug. Seriously, today was the best and worst Apple experience of my life...
Yeah, i don't see this so much as a fail than Apple not being adequately prepared for the huge demand on launch day. In that way, yes, they did fail and drop the ball. Why didn't they just have activation via iTunes? They've had time to work out the previous bugs and perfect the system.
The Apple Store London Regent Street staff at one point, I wanted to scream at them. But they really handled themselves well with the epic fail of O2 that was going on.
This will go down strongly in history as one of the worst launches in Apple Europe's history. There will be many unhappy people. Much bad press.
The Apple Store staff however did the best they humanly could, the average Specialist was simply trying to follow procedures.
The f*ked up O2 activation site only runs in Internuts Exploder so they were using VMWare Fusion. This was not the problem, the problem was that the O2 activation server is total garbage.
I encourage everyone to avoid O2 and Carphone Warehouse outlets as far as possible and give it some time to then actively but calmly speak to Apple Store personnel.
The trouble with MobileMe seems to have carried over to the activation. It's a hiccup (a bad one) but everybody will be using away in a day and will have forgotten this in a week.
This was the first time I have ever tried to get an item on release day (I did order my MBA on RD but received it about a month later). Guess I was lucky, though I did have to wait a little while for the activation. That was 11 hours ago. Now, I am one very happy camper.
Got to my local O2 store at 8am this morning, 12th in line. Doors opened at 9am,i got in at 10am. By that time all the 16gb ones had sold out (my O2 only had 9). System crashed so all purchases were filled out on paper. I was told I'd be able to use my sim by this afternoon, it's still not working
Comments
"The UK iPhone 3G launch has begun, with queues of customers reported outside stores across the country - but there's been some bad times to temper the good.
At the O2 store on Oxford Street, 67 people were in the queue at around 7.30am this morning; round the corner at Apple Regent Street there were 100 souls.
Bluewater shopping centre saw 60 people waiting in line at the O2 shop, with maybe five hanging around outside of the Apple store there. North of the border in Glasgow, 50 people queued outside the O2 shop on Argyle Street at 7.30 am.
As 8.02 am approached, excited crowds began surging forward, and shops across the country opened their doors; the first shoppers walked in... and then came the big wait.
"Yeah the computers went down about 8.2oam," explained Hugh Donaghy from the line at the Glasgow O2 store. Having purchased his phone, Donaghy trudged to work, and now appears to be in iLimbo. "I have paid, and signed my contract, yet am at work waiting for the O2 authorisation, which they (Carphone Warehouse) are going to phone me with..."
A person in the Oxford Street queue experienced the same thing: "The first people went in and it took 45 minutes - the credit check thing failed, the computer registration failed, same deal at the Apple store. It took maybe an hour before the first purchase came out. Twenty minutes ago they took to paper and pen.
O2's UK press office this morning confirmed that all its shops were affected by a system outage, "Systems were a bit slower than normal earlier in the morning," a company representative said, "but this due to huge simultaneous customer demand."
"There has been a phenomenal response, interest has been extraordinary," the representative said. Apple staff are saying the problem is with 02's servers being unable to cope with demand.
Otherwise ordering and processing time should be at around 20 minutes per customer, the PR explained. Macworld's man at O2's Oxford Street shop is currently seeing the location sort through approximately 15 people per hour, with O2 reps walking through the queue explaining they have plenty of phones. Upgrade customers are being served faster.
Credit checks also failed at Bluewater this morning, where our witnesses now explain O2 staff have resorted to plan B - using pen and paper to get customer details and bringing out application forms for those already in the queue to fill in while they wait.
Reports from iPhone launches outside the UK also confirm around a 20 minute period for each sale, as the iPhone is authorised and new or upgrading accounts approved.
Back in Glasgow, Macworld can also confirm the approval system continued to have faults, causing lengthy delays with reports of some customers becoming fractious as a result.
"One total muppet lost his rag with the manager," an eye-witness said, "there's always one," he added.
At the O2 shop on Argyle St, Glasgow, and round the corner at the Carphone Warehouse shop, reports suggest highly limited supplies of the 16GB iPhone 3G. "I was third in the queue at Carphone Warehouse. When we got into the shop, the guy in front of me bought the only 16GB iPhone they had in stock.
"The guy in the shop said that each Carphone Warehouse had received only one 16GB model," our witness added.
UPDATE: The system seems under considerable strain. iPhone shoppers at the Bluewater Apple retail store are being asked if they'd like to reserve their products for later collection, because, we're told, Apple has so far been unable to complete the approval/activation procedure for anyone this morning at its Bluewater store.
UPDATE: Reports claim Apple staff couldn't access the O2 phone network's activation system, and that the O2 system only worked with Internet Explorer."
For now, this looks more like a speed bump. Epic fail, not so much.
UPDATE: Reports claim Apple staff couldn't access the O2 phone network's activation system, and that the O2 system only worked with Internet Explorer."
I hate it when people go.. "The System's went down"
As if it's the system's fault. No... It's YOUR faults you bunch of talentless idiots!
You have the biggest release on your doorstep, you'd think you'd check a few things really.
Then again as long as people wait outside there's no real reason to change anything.
Regards,
Simon
Didn't get my iphone until 13.30 (had to go to work for an hour whilst they waiting for the systems to work). Got home and now the itunes doesn't work, keeps returning an error. So after 12 hours and being the first in store i have a pathetic 8gb iPhone that still isn't working.
someone feel sorry for me please!!!!
I was first in the queue at Carphone Warehouse this morning at 5am. Found out that all 16gb had been reserved the day before for customers to get out of bed when they like.
Didn't get my iphone until 13.30 (had to go to work for an hour whilst they waiting for the systems to work). Got home and now the itunes doesn't work, keeps returning an error. So after 12 hours and being the first in store i have a pathetic 8gb iPhone that still isn't working.
someone feel sorry for me please!!!!
Mr. Bullet, I waited 25 hours for an iPhone 3g white 16gb. I am in the press regarding the first lone person camping out at Apple Store London Regent Street... At 8am I was in the first 20 of the queue. All 20 of us waited from 8am to about almost 12pm to get our activation going.
Then despite having all the documents and the Specialist typing in the exact same form into the system about 20 times over 4 hours, then finally O2 said my contract was declined. = Fail, no iPhone 3G white 16gb for me. I then went home.
I empathise, and let's have group hug. Seriously, today was the best and worst Apple experience of my life...
Yeah, i don't see this so much as a fail than Apple not being adequately prepared for the huge demand on launch day. In that way, yes, they did fail and drop the ball. Why didn't they just have activation via iTunes? They've had time to work out the previous bugs and perfect the system.
The Apple Store London Regent Street staff at one point, I wanted to scream at them. But they really handled themselves well with the epic fail of O2 that was going on.
This will go down strongly in history as one of the worst launches in Apple Europe's history. There will be many unhappy people. Much bad press.
The Apple Store staff however did the best they humanly could, the average Specialist was simply trying to follow procedures.
The f*ked up O2 activation site only runs in Internuts Exploder so they were using VMWare Fusion. This was not the problem, the problem was that the O2 activation server is total garbage.
I encourage everyone to avoid O2 and Carphone Warehouse outlets as far as possible and give it some time to then actively but calmly speak to Apple Store personnel.
The trouble with MobileMe seems to have carried over to the activation. It's a hiccup (a bad one) but everybody will be using away in a day and will have forgotten this in a week.
This was the first time I have ever tried to get an item on release day (I did order my MBA on RD but received it about a month later). Guess I was lucky, though I did have to wait a little while for the activation. That was 11 hours ago. Now, I am one very happy camper.
I encourage everyone to avoid O2 and Carphone Warehouse outlets as far as possible
I would love to see the day when Apple just relase a new iphone from their stores. No sim card, no contract, not locked.
This iphone would cost you say.. £399 for the 16GB one.
Then the mobile phone networks have to beg you to join their network.
"Join us and we'll give you £200 back plus free data, etc"
I have NO idea why apple doesn't just sell the iphone at a price they can make a good profit on, and then let US deal with the network side of things.
Regards,
Simon
I would love to see the day when Apple just relase a new iphone from their stores. No sim card, no contract, not locked.
This iphone would cost you say.. £399 for the 16GB one.
Then the mobile phone networks have to beg you to join their network.
"Join us and we'll give you £200 back plus free data, etc"
I have NO idea why apple doesn't just sell the iphone at a price they can make a good profit on, and then let US deal with the network side of things.
Regards,
Simon
Yup. Apple UK danced with the devil... and you know what happened.