News

iPhone: "The other party knows you are still waiting..."

by Bill Ray | posted on 15 July 2008

UK customers who queued up to get Apple's shiny new iPhone last week are still waiting for a connection as O2 struggles to get their SIMs registered and activated on the network.

According to O2, the new iPhone has seen "unprecedented demand" and "several million pounds" has been invested to ensure the processing systems can cope. Perhaps this just wasn't enough, however, as many punters buying the phone on Friday had to face a three day, and counting, wait before they could make a call.

While the problem was widely reported last week and over the weekend, it now seems to be largely restricted to customers who bought from the Carphone Warehouse site. Though some haven't had any problems, others are seeing a succession of promises broken by O2.

We asked O2 for comment, but are waiting to hear from them.

Disgruntled early adopters have set up a website to share updates, and are consoling themselves with the fact that they can at least use WiFi access to buy things at the new Application Store - even if they can't ring each other up to brag about what they've bought.

Other irate readers resorted to old technology to deluge us with complaints.

Darren's tale was typical: “My iPhone activated on Apple iTunes immediately. However it's now Sunday and my 02 Sim still hasn't been activated.”

Steve marveled at the slickness of the whole debacle: “Considering it's now seven days after I placed my order it's pretty impressive really that they can't register me. It can't be the credit check as that would have been done last Monday. It appears to be purely an issue with the network activation.”

Still, he managed to look on the bright side: “So right now I basically have an iTouch with the "added feature" of a "No Service" slogan in the top left."

Martin was also furious about the fact his phone was still not activated this morning, and asked: “Why did O2 stores refuse to tell people in the queue how many phones they had in stock? Have Apple and O2 manufactured the sell-out hype?”

We’re guessing Martin doesn’t work in tech marketing.