If you called me an Apple fanboy, I wouldn't be upset. So it pains me to say that the iPhone 3G launch has been craptastic. Excuse me ... capital 'C' Craptastic. A year ago Apple and AT&T were caught off-guard with the insanity that surrounded the original iPhone launch. Activation issues plagued many users for days. Cali Lewis of Geekbrief.tv had one hell of a time getting her iPhones activated. You'd think that Apple and AT&T would have learned from their mistakes.
Iphone 3G activation issues have marred what should have been a successful product launch. The fact that the iTunes activation servers have been shutdown by a self-inflicted DDOS attack is astounding to me. They know exactly how many iPhones and iPod Touches there are in the wild, and how many they could sell over the course of a day. So why couldn't they plan for all of those simultaneous activations?
Something tells me that the IT and Operations teams at Apple have been working feverishly to hit an upper management mandate for this launch. Even though things have backfired, I sympathize and applaud the effort. This smacks of some poor planning at the upper levels of the company.
Let's keep in mind that this isn't just the iPhone 3G bringing Apple to its knees. All of the original iPhones that are trying to download the 2.0 software update need to reactivate themselves. iPod Touch owners, myself included, have also been trying to purchase and download the update. Here's an easy solution: release the 2.0 software several days in advace to allow iPhone and iPod Touch users to get the update out of the way. This would relieve some of the pressure on the servers.
Like I said, the decision to release all at once wasn't a pragmatic decision, but a "let's make a big splash" marketing decision. It's a shame.
I'm still planning on buying an iPhone 3G, as I've mentioned earlier, but my enthusiasm has waned after today's debacle.
