It looks like a plethora of early-adopting iPhone fans worldwide ran into problems activating their much coveted "jesus phone". For some reason, the iTunes server was unable to handle the bombardment of activation requests, causing some people to either wait as long as 2 hours to get their phone activated, or were allowed to purchase an unactivated iPhone only to run into similar difficulties trying to activate it from home. Check out the following headlines:

iPhone glitches derail Apple's launch event magic

Apple and AT&T Stores Having Difficulty Activating iPhones (UPDATE: It's the iPocalypse)

And that my friends is one of the reasons I no longer wait in line for an iPhone launch product. Among other reasons, which I described in my last entry, I also recall a few similar problems with the activation of my own 2G iPhone when I purchased it June 2007. You don't need a crystal ball to predict the obvious.

I had a co worker who took the early part of the day off to wait in line for the iPhone. He was allowed to purchase an unactivated iPhone from the AT&T store and brought it into work. Towards the end of business, around 4:00 pm CDT or so, he was finally able to get his iPhone activated. He was having other problems getting his contacts ported over to his new phone, so I lent him my ubergeek skills and showed him how to copy his contacts from his old phone to his new SIM card and copy those contacts from there to his brand-spanking new 3G iPhone. Like I've always said before, it's good to know Derrick. Actually, I don't specifically remember if I ever said it before, but I wouldn't be surprised if I did say it once or twice in the past. =p

So anyway, I am still itching to get a phone of my own. Like I mentioned in the previous entry, I won't be getting a 3G iPhone, if Apple decides to release a 32GB model, which I'm rather sure they will, eventually I may reconsider, but until then I'll hold off. Meanwhile, there are a few other phones that are currently piquing my interest. The Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 is being released in September, but I'm not sure if I want to wait that long for a phone. The North American version of the N95 with its 8GB update is still one of the best phones out there, but with the N96 looming in the horizon and with the added wait for a North American N96 model to be released, it's still best to just wait there too.

There are a handful of other phones I an considering, but I think the HTC Touch Cruise is at the top of the list for me at the moment, because I'm in need of a GPS and it has a full GPS receiver with Tom Tom software built into it. Sure I can buy a cheapo GPS unit (as cheap as $100 for a refurbished standalone unit) to satisfy my immediate GPS needs (yes, Derrick is directionally challenged), but knowing me I'd wind up buying the most expensive thing out there (it can literally costs thousands to retrofit my car with an in-dashboard unit), and if I'm going to spend that much money anyway, I might as well get a phone out of the deal. =p

Well anyway that's all I have to blog for the moment, until next time...