The long-awaited day has arrived.
Not only is Apple releasing the brand new iPhone 3G phone, which promises to do everything but do your dishes, but they are also releasing the new iPhone 2.0 firmware which promises to bring new functionality to current iPhone hardware.
I woke up early today and plugged in my iPhone to find that the 2.0 update had rolled out to my area. I told iTunes to download v2.0, backup my current phone (it does a complete wipe) and bring me up to date.
The download went smoothly and the install appeared to have worked.
That\’s when things went south…
While iTunes recognized my device, there were no menu items available for the iPhone. Just a white screen with the words \”iPhone\” in the center.
In the meantime, the progress bar at the top of iTunes was stuck on \”Accessing iTunes Store.\”
I waited. And waited. And waited some more.
After 30 minutes or so of no activity, I called Apple Tech Support.
I was on hold for approximately 30 minutes as I waited to speak with a Tier 1 support agent.
He had me try a few things, including rebooting my computer and doing forced restores on my iPhone.
Nothing.
He then informed me that the traffic to Apple was so high that this portion of the iTunes store was inaccessible.
He assured me that once traffic died down, everything would be fine, but that I would not be able to restore my iPhone until that happened.
So essentially I have a brick attached to my computer at the moment.
I wanted to get Tier 2 support, but they were incredibly busy and there was no way to get through to them.
The support rep then informed me that he had just received a message to his screen.
The iTunes store had completely CRASHED!
Wow, even APPLE screwed up in underestimating the bandwidth and server power that would be required to pull this update off without a burp.
They didn\’t just burp.
They blew chunks all over the place and I\’m without an iPhone today… who knows how long.
I did some searching through my Windows directory structure and found my backup files in:
C:\\Documents and Settings\\Joel\\Application Data\\Apple Computer\\iTunes\\iPhone Software Updates
However, even double-clicking a restore file does no good as a connection to the iTunes Store is required in order to restore.
I\’m sure this will blow over soon, but I\’m frustrated that Apple dropped the ball on this one. Now I\’ve got to go without my iPhone all day.
I guess I can take solace in knowing that there are likely millions of others in the same boat.
I wonder how much this will cost the U.S. economy?