iTunes activation process hits a snag

Really, it was an ingenious idea in theory. Then again, communism works in theory. To avoid massive wait times to activate iPhones for the 500,000 that were sold over the weekend, Apple and AT&T worked out a system where you can activate your iPhone through iTunes. This allowed for a much smoother transaction at the store, and was supposed to provide and even smoother activation process. Unfortunately, all did not go as planned (wow, we never saw that coming from a company with such great customer service as AT&T [/sarcasm]). Activation problems were said to have stemmed from the large volume of people trying to activate simultaneously. Errors are bound to occur in systems not designed to handle high volumes of transactions. We would have thought that Apple and AT&T would make sure that the system could handle all of these activations, but we suppose we were wrong. It appears that the problems were greater for new subscribers than existing subscribers transferring their account to the new phone. That must be a great first experience with a new company: you can’t even activate the phone you just dropped $600 on. We’ll let your buddy Mark Siegel, AT&T spokesman, tell you what’s up: “The vast majority of iPhone users are completing their activation on the iTunes side in a few minutes and without a hitch. But we do have some customers who are having issues with activation.” This makes us really wonder the percentage of people having a problem. Why we think the problem is bad: apparently, you were able to navigate the entire activation process. However, after all was done, you were to receive an e-mail confirming activation. The problem was that many people did not receive that e-mail. Since many people are impatient, we figure they went through the whole process again. That would likely screw up the system further. There were also limited reports of customers having trouble with their new SIM card. As you may know, the iPhone SIM isn’t compatible with any other SIM. Anyway, this problem wasn’t as widely reported as the activation problem, and was usually solved by a trip back to the store, where an employee would swap out the card for a new one. If AT&T and Apple can fix this activation process (and with the sales boom over, it might fix itself), they can consider the launch a success. [CNet News]]]>