Today is the day. Yes it is the day that the iPhone 3G launches across the United States. Where can you buy it? Well if you are reading this post right now and haven't already gotten one today, you are probably too late. If you do want to make sure though, the two places you should check are the nearest Apple retail location or the nearest AT&T Store. Many stores sold out within the first few hours of the day and customers are grumbling across the nation.

There were some similar problems when the original iPhone was launched and it seems Apple and AT&T have yet to be able to master the whole inventory issue. If that isn't enough, it seems that quite a few people who are actually getting their hands on an iPhone today are having some significant activation problems. AT&T Stores are not able to download the new iTunes 7.7 software for many users, so they are telling them they will have to do it themselves later today. It appears that the iTunes store was simply not ready to meet the demand necessary and that is causing a page not found error. This problem is also occurring for those who already have the original iPhone and were hoping to upgrade to the new iTunes software. It isn't just the upgrade for iTunes that is the problem, but also the upgrade to the 2.0 software. The 2.0 software is needed on the iPhone to run more than 500 applications on the phone, so it's no wonder that users are getting quite peeved!

it seems that the meltdown of the iTunes serveris dampening the mood on the arrival of the new 3G, which is said to be a major upgrade from the original iPhone. BusinessWeek Tech Beat writer Stephen Wildstrom even titled his post today "iPhone 3G: You Can Buy It But You Can't Use It." I have to agree with Stephen's thoughts that one would think that after 6 months of hype surrounding the 3G Apple and AT&T would have been ready for this. Apparently not.

The question is, will this come back to hurt Apple in the long run? Sure users generally love Apple's technology, but at some point these kind of customer service blunders will come back to bite them. You know that Research in Motion and other competitors will be ready to seize any opportunity that Apple gives them. Could this be an opportunity for them? Time will tell, but Apple better get its act together before customers decide they have had enough.

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