Apparently the only reason my handset can't be handed over is that the system that allows the guys in the store to check that I'm eligible for an upgrade isn't working. Perhaps it'd be easier if I just phoned O2 now, cancelled my old contract and started a new one.

I'm choosing Paris, because this, like her, is just pathetic.

Registered on o2 website with no issues, ordered the 16Gb iPhone with no problem, it arrived Friday morning about 9.30am, activated instantly, after spending ages working out how to put the SIM in - curiously not mentioned in the instructions! PAC code arrived Saturday from Orange, acknowledged yesterday. You could say I'm one very happy O2 iPhone 3G person!

Looking at some of the comments and stories, I'm one of the lucky few though!

Let the flames commence.... =)

Sounds like O2 are really not looking after their "first day" customers. Popped into my local Apple store just now and purchased one, and apart from them having to do my URU check by hand (servers down again) it was all working by the time I left the store.

Did O2 really not plan for so many people wanting one, even after they got such a large response to their pre-registration.

(Happy face - as mine works)

I have not got as far as activation yet, just try getting a broken at the factory iphone replaced!

I now have to wait until stock becomes available and go in the queue according to O2.

Sigh

"Other irate readers resorted to old technology to deluge The Reg with complaints."

iRate, shurely?

Mine's an iCoat

Though obviously I am appalled by the infrastructure breakdown on launch day and in the subsequent days, I was very impressed by O2's local customer service. I bought my iPhone 3G on Friday morning at the flagship store on Oxford Street and received a phone call at 10am on Saturday (he said they were all at work till 1am that night and in at 6am on Saturday morning processing applications) saying my sim card had been activated; which on testing, was indeed working. I then received a text message telling me my number would be ported by the 16 July.

“Why did O2 stores refuse to tell people in the queue how many phones they had in stock? Have Apple and O2 manufactured the sell-out hype?”

I can't speak for other stores but the manager of the o2 shop in Warrington was happy to let people know on Friday morning how many he had in stock. Those of use in the queue even did a quick head-count se we'd know if we'd be able to get a 16 gig version or not.

Got my iPhone friday morning from o2 (upgrade from an non iPhone o2 contract), they didn't give me a new sim but insisted i take the empty envelope the sim was in but assured me my sim was compatible

it did pick up the edge network and i could make calls, so i kept calling to find out when it would be 3g activated, always in the next hour.....

until this morning when i was told that i needed a new sim card as the old one wasn't compatible and just to ensure things ran smoothly they had cancelled my old and new contracts

no wonder apple kept the lions share of iPhones to themselves, and they're still selling them now and people walk out the store with a working 3g phone.....

HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA serves you right for been early adopting fan boys. Mines the one with the pre ordered Nokia N96 in the pocket.

'iTouch is a terrible name, and you're only saving 3 keystrokes. Either type the whole name, or just use "touch"'

Seconded.

You're not the only one - Mine's working perfectly. I called them Saturday morning and they explained that only the main office had access to the systems and were processing the paper forms as quick as they could.

At about 1500 the same day I got a call from the store manager to say everything had been done and about 10mins later the phone worked.

I am a new customer without porting a number, not an upgrade so that may make some difference.

And our store sold out Friday morning and has no idea when they will receive any more.

No complaints from my end other than the delivery driver making me wait all day. I was out all day and expected to come home after work to find a "you were out when we called" ticket in my door. Much to my disappointment there wasn't so thought I'd missed out for the day and I'd have to wait til Monday for it to come. Lo and behold there was a knock at the door at 8pm with my shiny new package. Yay

Opened it up, took it out, like someone else, struggled to find where the hell I needed to put the sim card then after about 10 mins found it. Put it all together and presto, I was in!

Wish I could put firefox on here (although memory requirements would kill that idea dead) Safari is far from "stable". Had far too many crashes since starting to play with it.

Picked up an Iphone on day 1, activated and working within 15 minutes of purchase from local O2 store in Barnstaple. Good service.

@Dave Fisher

Generally capital letters are classed as shouting on the t'interwebs. I was laughing quite loud therefore a capital letter assault was deemed appropriate.

Ordered my iPhone on Thursday from CPW (despite my over protective bank blocking the credit card transaction first time around) and it was delivered to my local shop in SW London on Friday.

Got my iPhone home at about 6pm and plugged it in to my laptop and it activated it no problems.

Only glitch was not being able to register the iPhone on iTunes and sync it until late on Friday night, about 11pm.

Other than that nothing but success!!

However I do agree with the comment about Safari being far from stable.

Last hurdle will be porting my number from Orange, still waiting for the PAC number.........

Has to be said, I've not had too many issues. I queued up on Friday morning and was told that the systems were down, so it might take 48hrs to activate...they did let me walk out of the store with the phone, however.

Come Friday evening and it was all up and running, so not as quick as usual, but not too much of a delay. I do have a friend who could only pick his up on Sunday afternoon, however, because the credit-checking system just wasn't working at all at his store.

As a sidenote, the 'failed' order I placed through the O2 website on Monday turned up on Saturday morning, and that is apparently fully activated and ready to go too (according to emails and SMS from O2)...so whilst some people are spending all day on the phone trying to track down some stock, I'm currently sat here with two :)

I think it's fair to say that this debacle has been dreadful PR for O2. I'm a new O2 customer. I waited in line (not for very long though - I had the sense to pick a store in a small town rather than in a big city), paid my money, and got a 16GB iPhone. Of course, I was still struck by the registration server failure - but the very attractive girl who served me had the brains to ditch the IT quickly and sign me up on paper.

24 hours later, my new i gained its Phone and I must say that it is a wonderful device (albeit with a crappy camera - but since I have an SLR, I don't really care about that). Apparently, it'll be Wednesday before my old phone number gets transferred - which is a nuisance - but, other than that, plain sailing.

Simon Langley;

"I am in the same boat and it appears that this is my reward for being a loyal O2 customer for years.

I had to wait 2 hours in the shop waiting for O2's system to confirm I was eligible for an upgrade while new customers waltzed out with their fully functional iPhones."

I've had a simular experience, i phoned the 02 lady, just like the support email suggested and then she told me to go to carphone warehouse or the website, seeing as the website is like a merry-go-round simulator I opted for carphone warehouse. Where upon I spent 1hr waiting for the system to tell me that I couldn't upgrade in carphone warehouse, even though the 02 support line said otherwise.

complete muppets. My upgrade may consist of moving phone providers and getting an n95, screw the iphone. Paris, because she'll screw anything.

Are any of us surprised that it was a struggle on the first day (or few days)?

I think it's awesome that so many people want an iPhone 3G, but seriously, if you want to keep your blood pressure down, leave it a few weeks and then stroll into your local O2 or Apple Store one weekday afternoon and upgrade/buy then. So much easier.

It's like leaving work at 6pm and then complaining that the undergound is too busy!

And yeah - enough with the "iTouch" (third-ed)... it's iPod Touch or Touch... pfft.

isn't a bit strange to be moaning about early adopter 'fan boys' (?) and then talk about preordering a nokia

Purchased my two iPhones on Friday from the lovely store in Halifax. No problems at all with the activiation problems. Only beef I have is with Microsoft Outlook, synced fine on one handset, major problems on other.

@ScottK - I'll happily stick with my much cheaper iPhone - after all, just to buy an N96 at the moment looks like being more costly than the iPhone if the SIM-free price is £699, plus you then have to hunt around for a tariff that allows you to have unlimited data and wi-fi access included? Oh - I have that one with my iPhone too.

On the downside, software version 2.0 has a fair few bugs and my iPhone is definitely less stable than 1.1.4. (however still more stable than the N95 it replaced!)

Oh - my coat's the one with the Light Saber in the pocket :)

Picked up the phone after the system went down and they reverted to paper. Put my sim in from my old phone, plugged it into iTunes, actived it.

Nothing went wrong once I got out of the shop and neither did the other guy from work who got one. Shame they had no 16gb devices, but can't say I have any real complaints....sorry

lol it's over priced and over here.. why would you buy into the hype 3g will cost you an arm and leg and in these times of dare i say resestion is it worth being the only kid on the block with a new toy ?

and now there making you wait to use it ...

Yeah, I spent four hours in an Apple Store on Friday trying to get a new iPhone connected. Eventually picked the phone up first thing on Saturday morning, as I had already got my contact number from Friday and Apple had at last moved to the paper-based process.

Still no sign of activation though on Monday afternoon (nor a note of my new phone number, or a date for my existing number port). Apple act surprised and refer me to O2, O2 apologise and promise activation later today...we'll see whether that happens before the reality distortion field wears off - if not Apple will shortly have another refurb unit to sell...

iTouch? iProd is a better name!

'iTouch is a terrible name, and you're only saving 3 keystrokes. Either type the whole name, or just use "touch"'

Sort of thirded. But it's 4 keystrokes sort of... unless it should be ipodtouch without a space...

Looking in my pocket for my iphone...ahhrrgggh, don't have it yet. Contract ends on Wednesday

Ordered from CPW online on the 7th (day released to preorder). All went fine until the phone was delivered (no need to ring up/hassle CPW), then Apple played up for ~1hr and couldn't activate in itunes. Once that finally succeeded, I'm stuck in 'No Service'.

I called CPW on Saturday, who told me it was an O2 issue and put me through to O2. O2 told me that they knew there was a problem, but it would all be sorted by 5pm on Saturday.

It wasn't, so called up O2 on Sunday, and was told that it would be activated 'by the end of Sunday'.

It wasn't, so I rang up today to be told that O2 have no record of me, no record of my phone number, and have absolutely no idea when I will be activated. Apparently someone will ring me in the next hour (at 11am, I was told I'd be rung within 5 hours to sort it out), but I doubt it somehow.

I can get that a systems failure could seriously mess something like this up, but I dont like being systematically lied to me - if someone tells me something will happen, then it bloody well should be, or they should contact me to tell me why they haven't done what they said they would.

I also don't get this 'massive demand killed our systems, its not our fault' angle. They knew how many iphones they were getting, they knew how many people registered an interest. Putting two and two together, they should have anticipated that if they have N iphones coming in, they should have realistically expected to have been able to activate N contracts.

I hope by the time they release the next iphone, apple will have wised up and allow all operators to sell them. iphone on vodafone would have been nice.

I think there are 2 issues. One is people not being activated (they are able to set up the phone and use Wi-Fi etc) and others (like myself) getting an error message saying there is 'no SIM' in the phone. If anyone can explain this distinction I would be very grateful.

Why a penguin - I think they would move quicker and have more intelligence than the folks at O2

Seriously. I don't understand the mentality of people who have to be the first with a new toy. In fact Apple and others rely on this as a marketing trick. Have limited stock on day of launch and create a sellout. Thus ensuring it appears as desirable as possible to other potential purchasers.

Don't believe the hype I say. I'll grab one when they are a year old on PAYG.

I see The Register hasn't reported the story that over 1 million iPhone 3Gs were sold over the first weekend - and if they'd had more stock and a less shambolic launch it would presumably have been much more!

You don't suppose the same company that does O2's IT systems is also responsible for the Oystercard, do you??!