This is a follow up to my previous article, iPhone 3G Misconceptions, in that the iPhone 3G has now been released. Unfortunately as a bricked phone to most people. Thats to say Apple in all their swagger and snobbery had a relapse many times worse of last years server situations. This time with almost complete collapse for a few hours in the morning. Yes this happened last time, but you can forgive that. Apple's first entry into the phone world was a grand success with a few hiccups on launch day that could be looked over. Doing it again however, is just ignorant. Ignorant of the size of your company. Ignorant of the popularity of the item. Ignorant of the publicity making the same mistake twice, and worse, will garner you. There is only one thing that could have made crashing servers, closing stores, and lost revenue worse. And it happened without warning to hundreds of thousands of people. The software was allowed to wipe your old iPhone, only to lock up and shut down before it could reapply all your contacts and reactivate your sim card.

So there you sit. Thought you had outsmarted Apple by waiting a few days to get the new phone, but hey, you should explore some of the new features released for your phone as well, quickly, before work. Now your running late, have no phone to call ahead, or do anything for the day with, and no explanation to why your phone went from one of the most advanced to an ineffective book stand. This isn't your ipod; that can just be set aside and dealt with upon your return with a few strong words to an Apple customer support person. The phone was designed to hold your business and most of your personal life in an easy to access, convenient location safely. To ignore the responsibility you have given yourself by killing peoples phones, even for a few hours, is unacceptable by such a large corporation that prides itself on not releasing half-assed, incomplete, constantly updating software and hardware.

Point is, Apple has out-grown itself, and its fan base has outgrown it. Seems like a contradiction, but allow me to explain. Apple has gotten so large, they consider themselves infallible in the eyes of the people who buy Apple products. What they don't realise is they don't sell to a few thousand close nit fanboys who will defend its decisions to the death. They sell to hundreds of thousands, nay, to millions of people, all of which in the past have become instant fans of anything and everything Apple. Until now. New fans to the Apple clubhouse will be shocked with ineffective service, unprepared software, and a scene not previously known to Apple. Unhappy customers.

If you NEED the new iPhone, wait it out, with such massive delays and ineffective activations, there will most likely be no extreme lack of iPhones for any significant amount of time. Give it till Monday when you can rush on over and hopefully get the paper work and activation done at lunch time. By then the crazy people will have activated their phones, the servers will have been repaired and reset, and we can only hope that enough bad press comes out of this that Apple will have no choice but to smooth the chink in their finely brushed aluminum armor out with a much more effective launch of their next big product.

Hopefully if I can get a new one in the few days to come, I'll review it for you, and I'll be over this incident which was me, and can tell you about some of the cool applications I've been playing with.