iPhone 3G: U.K. review, U.S. problems

The iPhone 3G went on sale in 22 countries today at 8:00 a.m. Several are being tested in our labs, and our first impressions will be posted later today. Meanwhile, our colleagues at Which?, the independent testing magazine in the United Kingdom, have used their 5-hour head start on buying the iPhone to complete their own review. Their impressions were favorable overall, though the 3G did get dinged for its inability to record videos or send multimedia text messages—a drawback it shares with the original iPhone.

Here in the States, iTunes' servers—critical for iPhone's activation—began slowing down and eventually conking out soon after stores opened, as Engadget's Nilay Patel reports. Many shoppers—including our own—waited 30 minutes to more than an hour after they reached the sales counter to complete the activation process. Other customers are being turned away or allowed to purchase inoperative iPhones they can activate later from home. It's not clear when "later" will be because the servers need to be up in order for you to upgrade iTunes on your computer to Version 7.7.

We were able to activate our new iPhones in just a few minutes, since we had performed the iTunes update earlier in the morning—a process that took over 2 hours because of the slow servers. As we reported earlier, you can upgrade your original iPhone's operating system to get many of the 3G's improvements, such as more sophisticated e-mail and PDA features as well as the ability to download a multitude of applications from Apple's new App Store. But it's critical that you first update iTunes on your computer to Version 7.7 and make sure you have a connection to the iTunes server before synching your iPhone with your laptop. Otherwise, as the Standard's Jordan Golson reports, you could end up in "upgrade limbo" with an iPhone that won't work.

Our advice on upgrades: Wait a few days for this server congestion to clear up.

—Mike Gikas

Comments

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@sam

do you know how to use the iphone? you don't press the buttons to answer calls, you use the screen. the button on the top is supposed to black out the screen.

[Sam]

I am so happy to hear that I'm not the only one with iphone trouble. Last Sunday I bought an iphone 3g, by the next day the vibrate function was not working anymore. I returned to the AT&T store and they begrudgingly replaced the phone making it very clear that they're doing me a favor. I go home and restore all of my data and within minutes I receive my first phone call. I attempt to answer the phone but every time I would push the button, the screen would black out. I restored the phone to it's original settings hoping that it was a software glitch, but to my dismay the same thing happened again. The following day I went to an AT&T store to replace the defective device, and the manager of the store tells me that since I already exchanged the phone once I can't replace it again. I explained to her that the phone was defective and I had 14 days to return or exchange it. She responded that it was impossible to have two defective phones. She would not even let me show her the problem, she had her mind made and that was final. I then went to the store where I originally purchased the phone determined to get my money refunded. The same gentleman in the store who the night before handled my exchange informed me that without a manager nothing could be done, and of course there was no manager on duty! He was in class!! The gentleman instructed to come back the following day at 10 in morning. I demanded to speak to a manager now, I don't have the time to come back, I work for a living. How can AT&T run a store without a manager?? Absurd!! He would not talk to me any further, I was only being a nuisance to him and he instructed me to please stand away from the desk so that he could help the next customer. I then waited about twenty minutes to speak to someone else, he was able to return the phone with the help of another employee who wanted to make it clear that she could keep me waiting for as long as her heart desired; claiming I would just have to wait until she was finished with her customer, when all she had to do was watch the guy standing next to her enter the return in the system! I then purchased a blackberry bold for full price because my upgrade was already used on the iphone. I asked them to double and triple check to make sure they transfered the service from iphone data to blackberry data. Of course they screwed it up. I had to call AT&T 3 times to straiten the service out. Wow! AT&T has the worst most uneducated, ill-informed, lazy, and obnoxious employee's!!! I feel like I just fought a war! I would never recommend the iphone to a friend, it just has to many glitches. And AT&T has decent service coverage but the absolute worst customer service!!!!