UPDATED: iPhone hit by activation problems - "half a million" sold

 

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Posted on 2 Jul 2007 at 09:55

Apple appears to have been able to meet early demand for the iPhone, which went on sale for the first time on Friday night. But that is more than can be said for AT&T, which admitted that it had been unable to handle the initial rush of activation requests.

According to ifoAppleStore, just 24 of Apple's 185 retail stores had sold out by the end of Saturday, with the majority of those in Apple's home state of California. These included the Palo Alto outlet, where shoppers were greeted by Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

Analysts estimate that Apple sold over half a million iPhones over the weekend.

AT&T said that the activation problems were simply a case of overloaded servers struggling to cope. The iPhone's exclusive network carrier said that it had made 'technical adjustments' to ensure that the problem would not recur. Apple said that the problem was not widespread.

"There are a small percentage of iPhone customers who have had a less than perfect activation experience," said Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris.

So while one customer described the experience as "unacceptable", Daring Fireball blogger John Gruber said it "took about one minute per phone", having bought one each for himself and his wife.

Gruber joined the ever-lengthening list of reviewers who are saying that the phone does what it sets out to do very well.

"Overall day one impression: the iPhone is 95% amazing, 5% maddening," he wrote. "I'm just blown away by how nice it is - very thoughtful UI design and outstanding engineering. It is very fun."

In fact its difficult to find a bad review, even in the PC press. If their is an overwhelming criticism then it is the choice of AT&T's EDGE network for cellular Internet access, a concern that Jobs addressed ahead of Friday's launch.

UPDATE: ifoAppleStore reports: "Apple reports that 62 of its 164 U.S. retail stores - 38% - will not have supplies of iPhones on Monday, a substantial increase from the 24 stores without supplies on Sunday. The distribution of the no-phone stores is also more widespread. On Sunday supplies were zero mostly at California, Texas and Florida stores, but Monday's "all outs" are scattered from Hawaii to Utah to Wisconsin to New York. California, however, took an especially hard hit: of the state's 36 stores, only the Stonestown and San Francisco stores have stock of the iPhone. Check our iPhone Index daily in the right column, showing how many stores will have supplies, and the trend from the previous day."

Author: Simon Aughton