Did you ever notice that the only people buying the iphone is Americans. All over Europe and Asia, 3g were out almost 5 years ago. I have an Asian phone unlocked so it can do 3G, internet and all the stuff that the I phone can do -- and I bought it 3 years ago!

You know the iphone is crap. Stupid Americans will buy anything the "media" says is "cool". Sheep to the slaughter, all of you! (Except the intelligent ilk like me and a few select others)

stupidity rules. he who needs the newest gadget on the first day, gets what he deserves.

the only way it would be worse is if you had to FLY commercial to buy the phone.......camping out for two days beats flying for frustration.

Today is my birthday, and I had thought about upgrading my iPhone for my birthday. But then I heard about people camping out last night, and I decided not to factor myself in with the epsilon-minuses. Boy am I ever glad I didn't participate in that disaster!

I might consider getting the 3G -- sometime next month, or maybe in September or October, after the price goes down again. Meanwhile, the iPhone is kinda neat, but nowhere near important enough to stand in line for. After all, there is some fierce competition in that space, and it's not going away anytime soon.

Throat Yogurt - please go spell out your ignorance and tastelessness elsewhere.

PS: I am no American and you are the stupid, sir.

PPS: this is called iPhone 3G but correctly named it is iPhone v2 - it's far more than 3G. You would have realized it if you'd be intelligent, which you try hard to hide

Brian White - iPhone v2 aka iPhone 3G launch day was a tremendous success and it was globally so - many reports of out of stock so big was the demand for this product.

And it was JUST a 21 country launch, imagine if Apple had committed to launch in all 75 countries today... You are unworthy of this space, much less of having an audience if this mindless crap is what you have to put out.

Disaster? - Your clueless article!

a disaster? what have you been smoking? yes, there were some glitches. couldn't find an article that said they weren't sold out. a disaster? hardly!

When will tech writers get a clue? You're not impressing anyone...obviously the day was a huge success, but we'll see the numbers sold the first week pretty soon. You can put a negative spin on that too, "only 1 million" in the first week, lol.

I was in line this morning with a few hundred others and yes, it did take quite some time to get the phone going. I had to download ITunes at home (I switched from Verizon) and it took about a half hour for the activation to finally be finalized online, but "disaster" may be a huge distortion of our collective experience. Where are you getting that information? I love the phone and the service. After 8 years and $30,000 with Verizon (I own a small business with multiple lines) I am glad to at least have a great piece of hardware to work with.

Hope all future AAPL launches are as much of a "disaster". Oh, and you need to find something to do other than blog Brian. What you write here gets you moved to the front of the line for the short bus.

Yes, there was an activation glitch today for an hour or so... that's life, but I have to say the iPhone 3G is truly amazing. What people do not get yet, but will soon, is that the iPhone is not about the phone, it's a whole mobile computing platform. It's all about the app store. I've downloaded about 15 apps so far and most all are extremely useful for productivity and just managing life. The integration with the desktop, internet, voice, GPS, motion sensor, games is flawless. Just use one for an hour and you honestly will realize there is nothing else even close to it on the market today. Here's a few cool apps I downloaded today. One you start, hold up to any song playing on TV, radio, etc and within seconds it recognizes the song, brings up the coverwork, utube videos, and a link to download the song from iTunes. Another app tunes your guitar, another is remote control for music running on any computer (mac or PC) or appleTV in the house. Another is a remote control for any light, appliance, etc in your home. Full AIM, games of all types, services locators, etc etc. I've had just about every PDA available and the software integration on this thing blows away the 100s of apps I've downloaded thoughout the years. OK, un-flame off.

PROS: nice looking, Big Screen, more internet compatible then most PDAs.

CONS: no removable battery, no removable storage card. no editable spreedsheet client side, no MSword editor.(READ ONLY DOCS palm and MS mobile have apps with phone) Not Available to existing CINGULAR( was better before ATT took over) user with another 200.00 and another 2yr of poor customer service from ATT. No option to not use push services which put your information on a Public Server. Most projected apps are webbased push service no local client ability.

Yes this launch was a disaster complete and total. From ups and downs of MobileMe throughout the day and night, the premature launch of the 2.0 firmware which coupled with the activation servers resulting in the iBricking of generation 1 phones to the incomprehensible incompetence of both AT&T and Apple when it came to the stores and the complete length and stupidity of the process classifies this as a complete and total clusterfuck - period.

There were people waiting in line in Atlanta, GA at Lenox Mall for 10-12 HOURS. One of the common problems being that people who had bundle plans or corporate discounts were forbidden from purchasing their phone in an Apple store - they had to get it from an AT&T store or deal with some 30 minute to 1 hour process with the IRU group. This of course slowed down everyone who was told by the AT&T website that they were eligible for an upgrade.

And then to really seal the deal and illustrate just how completely clueless the folks running this show were, the Activation servers went offline at 1AM EST with people STILL in line and having been in line for 10-12 hours! Since, of course, you couldn't buy the phone in line - people who didn't have an AT&T store in their neighborhood had to drive into a major city and sit for hours with no alternative.

How Apple and AT&T managed to get SO much wrong over a 24 hour period is beyond me.

Its like the pefect storm with ATTs dubious past and the number porting fiasco back in the day to thier swiss cheese network. Mix in typical Apple arrogance and gaytarded mac fanboys and no wonder shit went haywire.

This is the device one needs to assimilate fully into the Apple world. With an iPhone and a strong will, you can remake your world! Ya gotta love this cool sleek black tool! Hold it high and wave! Your world will never be the same.

The launch of the new IPhone was Apple's Jet Blue moment.....too little product in the AT&T stores....too little training....the phones would not sync with the existing accouts..etc. What were these idiots thinking? I was the 27th person in line, waited 4 hours, while it took the store 1.5 hours to get THREE people a phone to work....then only to be told by person 11 they were SOLD OUT of 16MB phones???!!!!! As a business account, I couldn't get one at the Apple Store (another wait), after an Apple person told me the AT&T folks were incorrectly telling their customers to go there. DON'T switch to AT&T like I did from T-Mobile...their services is awful, their CS is a joke, and they simply took over crappy delivery systems from Cingular. More bars in more places my A$$!
This was the biggest product launch joke I've ever seen. Apple and ATT can KEEP thier phone, as I've wasted too much time on a poorly executed plan. Stay away from the ATT hype on their great service, too. They may have "more bars in more places", but too bad it's only ONE bar in downtown Austin!!!!! Their solution to THEIR problem was to buy a $500 signal booster!!!! What a JOKE.

Well, I consider myself a sucker, plain and simple. I have seen the first Iphones and thought they were cool, but the price tag kept me away. Recently I thought I'd like to have a GPS since I am directionally challenged and went to price them. Average price was about $300-600. I then heard of the new Iphone 3g's coming out for only $199 and thought hey, best of both worlds. Cool phone and GPS and Wifi (not sure I'd use it, but hey again it would make me cool right?) Like many people yesterday I went early, waited a long time, and barely got an Iphone for myself. I couldn't activate it for about 10hrs after I purchased it. It's okay, but the GPS is Google Maps..it's not what I thought and not like the GPS I saw at Bestbuy. The phone's okay, it sure is "pretty" but I don't know why it's so much better than other phones out there? I guess it's the marketing and I usually don't fall for that gimicky stuff but this time I did.
Finally, my main complaint about this whole thing is that AT&T and Apple are HUGE companies with lots of "geniuses" working for them. This was ALSO not the first launch of a high demand I-phone. They should have anticipated the load on their systems, they should have anticipated the demand on the product. There is NO excuse for the server crashes, and NO excuse for them running out of phones. After I got my phone (I got the last one) the guy behind the counter whispered to me (in complete disgust) that they only got 40 phones at this location and it was a rather LARGE At&t store. BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE and BAD EXECUTION---Both Companies are to blame. For me...it was a lesson learned.

Well, I consider myself a sucker, plain and simple. I have seen the first Iphones and thought they were cool, but the price tag kept me away. Recently I thought I'd like to have a GPS since I am directionally challenged and went to price them. Average price was about $300-600. I then heard of the new Iphone 3g's coming out for only $199 and thought hey, best of both worlds. Cool phone and GPS and Wifi (not sure I'd use it, but hey again it would make me cool right?) Like many people yesterday I went early, waited a long time, and barely got an Iphone for myself. I couldn't activate it for about 10hrs after I purchased it. It's okay, but the GPS is Google Maps..it's not what I thought and not like the GPS I saw at Bestbuy. The phone's okay, it sure is "pretty" but I don't know why it's so much better than other phones out there? I guess it's the marketing and I usually don't fall for that gimicky stuff but this time I did.
Finally, my main complaint about this whole thing is that AT&T and Apple are HUGE companies with lots of "geniuses" working for them. This was ALSO not the first launch of a high demand I-phone. They should have anticipated the load on their systems, they should have anticipated the demand on the product. There is NO excuse for the server crashes, and NO excuse for them running out of phones. After I got my phone (I got the last one) the guy behind the counter whispered to me (in complete disgust) that they only got 40 phones at this location and it was a rather LARGE At&t store. BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE and BAD EXECUTION---Both Companies are to blame. For me...it was a lesson learned.

The IPHONE is not a big deal just for kids. they think its cool to have the newest toys. The only people I see with IPHONES are under 35. Its a toy. A phone is something that is necessary to have today. The IPHONE has few real benefits for those of us that use the phone for business. All the hype does not live up to the facts. Also the IPHONE does not have long talk times. It just a TOY.

"Deemed a disaster." This harkens back to George W's "Mission Accomplished," but since you're the "Decider" Brian let's take a look at how you qualify "disaster." A true disaster would be if the stores opened to no lines. The litmus test was Japan. The good citizens weren't supposed to be interested in the product but there they were standing in lines. I think this bodes well overall. Also, I heard that Apple was going to discontinue selling computers, ITunes, IPods, and everything else it does in such a horrid manner to focus solely on the phone.....not. If and when the Android and the Blackberry Thunder go on sale and they have similarly sized lines their CEOs would have to be tasered to get them away from the press. For Apple, it's just another day in paradise. Albeit on this morning they had a few showers. In politics and in marketing a product you can expect to have some problems from time-to-time. The Apple spin cycle goes non-stop. Whatever happened to the exploding flammable Ipods? Of course Steve's health will be a perpetual question going forward. Pricing plans, etc. The real skill is the products performance. Can it deliver? In a way you are correct. For Apple, considering the level of perfection for which they strive and the customer satisfaction ratings they receive, this was a disaster. For any other company they would love to have a disaster of this scope and magnitude. And in regard to GW, he would love to have Apple's customer satisfaction levels instead of his measly Nixonian 24% approval rating. Hell, Clinton was at 70% was he was impeached by the House.

"All I keep hearing about is IPhone, IPhone, all we are saying is Steve a chance."

Beltway Greg

I have 3G on my Palm 650, it is a waste. Downloads take forever. On the other hand I have a 3G card for my laptop, and that moves juat as fasr a broadband. I will wait until the I-phone can intergrate with "mobile ease" which is in my truck.