iPhone 3G S Customers Reporting Activation Delays

[LanPhantom]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7A341 Safari/528.16)

Mine activated in 10 seconds upon plugging it into iTunes.

[cpgallo]

I got mine to activate quickly as well.

[Chrispy]

Took me 3 hours and 5 calls to AT&T to finally get mine activated. Originally, my phone wasn't even showing up in the system.

[HouseofG]

Have you guys tried activating via the automated phone line (866.895.1099)?

I got that same message on my iphone about activation taking awhile, so I tried that number and it activated immediately after entering all the usual confirmation info.

Is that not working for anyone else??

[Chrispy]

Have you guys tried activating via the automated phone line (866.895.1099)?

I got that same message on my iphone about activation taking awhile, so I tried that number and it activated immediately after enter all the usual confirmation info.

Is that not working for anyone else??

I tried that and it sent me over to a "specialist" who could not help me. Granted this was at about 3:30 pm today. Hopefully that has changed now.

[tigerinroc]

After the activation stayed unchanged for about 5 minutes, I unplugged the phone from my Mac, turned it off, and plugged it back in and it worked. Hope this helps.

[seanmacdhai]

I had a great experience this morning. My iPhone arrived at 10 am via UPS and I was set up in 20 minutes. Why does the media insist of hyping up the negative? How many customers were able to activate their accounts without any trouble vs how many customers had trouble? The only way you could write a fair article would be if you could present me with the % of folks who had trouble vs the % of folks that did not.

[rtfulk]

Received my iphone 3G S this morning from UPS. Set it up by 10:30, but got the 48 hr. activation message. Put my old iphone sim in and used the phone all day I got an email about 9:30 tonight that said my iphone was now activated. I put the new sim in and it is working fine.

rtfulk

[Baja2k]

Well, after about 3 hours of checking every so often between breaks at work, I finally read the instruction book that came with the phone...

At first, I plugged the phone up to my mac and got everything syncing over, but no activation. I removed the sim and put it back in-no go. Got a message saying it may take a bit... Even called ATT/Apple support and the guy said the servers were getting hung up with so many activations.

Well, read the little book saying to call ATT or go online to activate. I called, punched in my numbers, it said to turn off for 5 minutes then turn back on...I did this and it worked within seconds...

I'm like many of us-ready to get the darn thing going with excitement running through me, but taking time to read the included booklet (it was on the front page) worked like a charm! If you guys haven't done so, try it!


Ok, Now that scared me.... I just went through everything I received again just to make sure I didn't miss it. My phone came in a brown box with 3 printed labels inside (all attached in a row): A return label (Ah yeah right), an order confirmation label, and gibberish label with bar codes and location codes. So nothing real informative there.

In the actual IPhone box there was: The Phone, Cable, Plug, and Head phones. SIM Tool, Apple Stickers and 2 documents:
Finger Tips - and
Important Product Information Guide - With text so small.... Oh never mind

I'm too lazy to actually read both documents in their entirety but neither have anything pointing me to an AT&T upgrade site during a quick look. The Finger Tips guide does have some info about setup on the first page but it doesn't reference AT&T at all. Quite frankly I wouldn't have looked here for AT&T stuff anyway seeing as this is a global product (Although they could have product runs for specific regions - but I doubt it)

I guess they "dropped" the upgrade book that was supposed to go in my box. At least they didn't drop my phone...... uuuhhhhh I hope

Of course I would have felt real silly if the AT&T rep at the store had looked at me with disdain and said RTFM while flipping to the exact page in the little booklet with the upgrade instructions. Lucky for me that didn't happen.

[cable]

Can someone help with my problem?

I bought and installed 3.0 BETA a while back. I woke up today and my iPhone 3G had a purple screen that said connect to iTunes. I connected to iTunes and nothing seems to work. When I click restore is says

"There was a problem downloading the software for the iPhone. "iPhone". The requested resource was not found"

You can click ok and nothing happens or click "more information" and it takes you to an apple faq page.

Since I didn't buy the 3GS is there something else I can try to get my phone working again? This is kind of messed up being that I'm not a new activation...ughhhhh

[bbrosemer]

I had a great experience this morning. My iPhone arrived at 10 am via UPS and I was set up in 20 minutes. Why does the media insist of hyping up the negative? How many customers were able to activate their accounts without any trouble vs how many customers had trouble? The only way you could write a fair article would be if you could present me with the % of folks who had trouble vs the % of folks that did not.

The media ... this is a forum ... look I like apple ... but they messed up my shipping order when I ordered the 9th ... that equals me not happy.

[Baja2k]

ooops

[johnqh]

Switch the SIM Card with my iPhone 2G got the phone instantly activated.

However, put the new SIM card (the one shipped with 3GS) in and it says "No Service".

I will just use my old SIM for now. Hopefully there is no side effect.

[johnqh]

Can someone help with my problem?

I bought and installed 3.0 BETA a while back. I woke up today and my iPhone 3G had a purple screen that said connect to iTunes. I connected to iTunes and nothing seems to work. When I click restore is says

"There was a problem downloading the software for the iPhone. "iPhone". The requested resource was not found"

You can click ok and nothing happens or click "more information" and it takes you to an apple faq page.

Since I didn't buy the 3GS is there something else I can try to get my phone working again? This is kind of messed up being that I'm not a new activation...ughhhhh

Google for "DFU mode iPhone". You can always restore the system with DFU.

[dan3L]

For what it's worth, I activated a new line today with an iPhone 3G S in an AT&T store in a matter of a few minutes. A friend of mine did the same.

I've gota agree...I got 2 at the Houston Memorial City Apple Store and had a great experience. They had their stuff together and handled my Family plan activation with zero issues.

[Detlev_73]

At least some of yours are working, mine just COMPLETELY DIED two hours ago. I'm SO ********** R O Y A L L Y P * S S E D !:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

[avediswolf]

I received mine around 1:30 PM.
Plugged it into itunes.
Watched my old iphone automatically say "No Service"
Waited about 10 minutes, and the new one was still not active.
I rebooted the phone, and it came back on saying it was activated.

Not too bad.

Popped my girlfriends SIM in the old one so she can start using it.
She receives a picture message. I was pissed. LOL.

[BowlCutChris]

Oh, AT&T. Another nail in the coffin we're preparing for your use on the day your exclusive deal with Apple expires.

Okay let's get one thing straight. Apple WILL NOT go with Verizon OR T-Mobile in the US when the exclusivity deal expires. AT&T has a fast 3G network and the phone can be used worldwide. Go with Verizon and you will have an UGLY VZW VCAST OS and will only be available to use in the US. love it or hate it, AT&T will always have the iPhone. If it's that big of an issue, move to Canada and use Rogers or the UK and use O2.

[olegandbuster25]

has this happned to anyone...
i had a jailbroken 2.2.1 3G
backed it up
i had games in a folder from categories (from cydia of course) and used a MIM thing for the carried
after i updated my 3G S it still somehow has the custrom carrier which i guess doesnt bother me.. although it will if i get a new gf but my games dont show up!!!!
somehow something from the old hacked software caught on to my new 3.0 clean software.. what do i do now??

[ec51]

Ok ... umm no ... what i said is the serial # is attached to the phone # ... not the sim ... the sim is independent ... Yeah I know the sim doesn't matter as when I bought by first 3g contract free... This one though I bought with a contract and apple apparently sends the phone serial # attached to a phone # ... NOT SIM ... serial # attached to phone # ... Is what I said therefore if you have a phone come to you that does not have your number and apparently is pre something or anothered by apple then it will not work ... No matter what sim ...

You need to learn how to type/write. You make no sense when you talk.

As I believe you mention, the serial # is attached to the phone number. So therefore, it should not matter what SIM I use. Either it be the "unactivated" NEW one that came with my 3GS or my OLD 3G sim (which is already 'activated' to my number). Mine is working with my old 3G sim, so why are you still arguing. You're wrong.

[ceehjayem]

My activation took literally less than 5 seconds when iTunes opened. This was at 9:30 am PST. On the other hand, my brothers phone is still in activation mode since noon.

[note235]

If you do an upgrade swap it activates right there and then.

[TLewis]

Waited nearly 5 hours for activation & tried reseating SIM/restarting before I finally broke down and called ATT. Hold time was surprisingly short, and to their credit, support was very helpful. Took about 30 minutes overall, but as soon as I hung up, I power cycled the phone and it was activated. All seems to be well so far.
Same here, except I had to wait around 40-50 minutes after hanging up, before my phone activated (the rep said, "10 minutes", heh).

[mlpsponzischeme]

I called AT&T and there immediate response was bring it in to a store. Um, you're not going to try and help me? What a joke! The rep told me I had to activate the new SIM card. When I use the old one, everything works just fine except it keeps telling me I don't have a data plan. AT&T is such a joke. I think it's becoming more and more obvious. It took me 3 hours to order my damn iPhone because I had to remove the unlimited family text plan before I could order on Apple's website. Unbelievable. Apple is lucky they have a great product because customer's are "putting up" with AT&T for it.

Can anyone help? I'm sitting here with no service. I'm so pissed.

[cable]

Google for "DFU mode iPhone". You can always restore the system with DFU.

I think it's working. Its now downloading 3.0. Thanks!

[billburroughs]

Mine shipped from AT&T online order. Hooked up to iTunes at 3:00pm, nothing as of 11:00pm. Called 866.895.1099, selected 1st option to accept terms and activated both phones immediately. Try this first!!!

[daitalianjob]

So I bought my phone under a different number on our family plan so I had to switch the numbers so I could use the phone...I called AT&T 5 different times and each time they gave me a different answer that never got me anywhere so finally I just went to the actual store and they fixed it in literally 5 minutes. I couldve saved 2 hours and pointless phone calls by just going to the store to begin with. But all is forgiven because I've been playing with my new and first iPhone all day!!!

[bellanotte03]

I activated my iPhone with no problem. I did a test call and it worked fine. About an hour later my husband told me that the name that appeared on our TV was some guy's name (we have cable VOIP) when I did the test call. So I called again and sure enough there's some guy's name linked to my brand new iPhone! So I call 611 to talk to AT&T Customer Service and now I get a window that says I have no SIM card installed! I try another number and I can't make any calls and I there is NO SIM in the upper left hand corner of the screen. I used the land line to call AT&T, the SIM card # did not appear in the general settings menu. I took out the card twice and reinstalled (turned phone off then on again twice). Nothing. They are sending me out a new card. Very weird. The Customer Service rep put in a request to get that guy's name off my phone number!:eek:

[KinOfCain]

short story: swapping sim worked (but no 3g yet)
... I haven't gotten a 3G signal yet. Not sure if it's due to the fact I don't have a good signal, or if my SIM is only set up for 2G.

3G is working now.

[shemp9999]

Received my iphone 3G S this morning from UPS. Set it up by 10:30, but got the 48 hr. activation message. Put my old iphone sim in and used the phone all day I got an email about 9:30 tonight that said my iphone was now activated. I put the new sim in and it is working fine.

rtfulk

This is my plan of attack. Glad for confirmation. I'm using my old SIM, waiting for the activation in style...

[Penguinwrangler]

Wow. WSJ is reporting that Jobs had a Liver transplant while he was on his leave of absence!!!

Hope he's doing well now!!


http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_12653039

[entity]

Mine shipped from AT&T online order. Hooked up to iTunes at 3:00pm, nothing as of 11:00pm. Called 866.895.1099, selected 1st option to accept terms and activated both phones immediately. Try this first!!!

Tried calling, down due to "technical difficulties". How ironic!:rolleyes:

[billburroughs]

Tried calling, down due to "technical difficulties". How ironic!:rolleyes:

Ugh... Well, if it helps anyone, I went that route having 2 2g phones. That may be the issue for some. I had swapped the sims, which worked, but realized that was not the right solution. Give it a few minutes and try back. BTW, AT&T is the devil.

[badNameErr]

Wow. WSJ is reporting that Jobs had a Liver transplant while he was on his leave of absence!!!

Hope he's doing well now!!


http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_12653039

Wow - big news.

[dwcerra]

[ got that same message on my iphone about activation taking awhile, so I tried that number and it activated immediately after entering all the usual confirmation info.

Is that not working for anyone else??
Have you guys tried activating via the automated phone line (866.895.1099)]

I got that same message on my iphone about activation taking awhile, so I tried that number and it activated immediately after entering all the usual confirmation info.

Is that not working for anyone else??

Nope, I tried to call the phone #, entered all pertent info and was told my phone was already activated. Still it is NOT after 12 hours.

Finally I called and spoke to a tech at AT&T.The girl I spoke to there said that some phones that were ordered online where never updated in their system (AT&T's). For example they still had me on as 3G and NOT 3GS. I simply read her the IMEI # on the back of the box and thte #'s of my 3GS SIM card and with in seconds it activated!

[SleepyHead157]

I'm not surprised at all. At least they didn't launch the 3.0 OS on the same day like last year. But we're talking about a major phone launch. Many CS reps in stores have no clue as to what to do.

[vansouza]

[QUOTE=HouseofG;7890030]Have you guys tried activating via the automated phone line (866.895.1099)?

I got that same message on my iphone about activation taking awhile, so I tried that number and it activated immediately after entering all the usual confirmation info.

Is that not working for anyone else??

Nope, I tried to call the phone #, entered all pertent info and was told my phone was already activated. Still it is NOT after 12 hours.

Turn the power off then back on....

[J71]

I got my new iPhone today at Best Buy. However at first they didn't have the 32GB white phone I wanted. I was getting ready to go to an AT&T store but first my wife wanted to browse the DVD and Blu-Ray section. However within a few minutes the BB employee I talked to said came up to me and said a 32GB white iPhone just arrived. Talk about being lucky!

No problems either with porting my number from Sprint to AT&T but the BB associate said it could take a few hours for the number to fully bridge over.

Love the phone so far and now that the SiriusXM app was just released is icing on the cake!

[dwcerra]

I got my phone via UPS this morning around 10am. I synced it successfully with iTunes and got the 'Waiting for activation' message. I tried turning it off and on several times throughout the day, nothing. I tried removing the SIM and reinserting it....nothing. Then I tried to call the ATT activation # ( 866-895-1099, entered all my info and got a message from their automated computer telling my phone was already activated.....NO IT'S not. Not it's 11pm and I'm on hold with ATT. I'm about to hang up and just hope it's activated by morning. :o( Finally after being on hold for nearly 20 min someone came online from ATT.
The girl was amazingly helpful. She said that some phones that were ordered online where never updated in their system. For example they still had me on as 3G and NOT 3GS. I simply read her the IMEI # on the back of the box and thte #'s of my 3GS SIM card and with in seconds it activated! I'm a happy camper now!

[Dominus]

2 calls to At&t, multiple power cycles, multiple sim chip pop outs, nothing.

[naco]

I guess it truly is "first come first serve". I was one of the first people to get it at my local store at 7am this morning. They told me it would be ready in 3 minutes for EVERYTHING. Was exactly on time.

[tasslehawf]

Got to the mall around 8pm; to the Apple Store around 9:30pm. Everything was going OK until we got an activation "upgrade" error (2G going to 3GS). He tried another SIM card, which un-activated my old phone. We later found out that their billing system went down. So not only do I have an unactivated 2G (that I can't reactivate), but I have to go back tomorrow to get my 3GS.

[Ampidire]

Mine warned me it would take up to 48 hours when I activated the 3GS on my moms phone number (using her upgrade and she gets my old phone), so I just swapped the SIM cards between the phones and they both activated right away and all I had to do was restore her phone to stock, and mine from a backup, couldn't have been more painless.

[andy721]

But yet not activated going on day 1 :(

[war eagle]

no problems here!

[orleanfyrfightr]

has this happned to anyone...
i had a jailbroken 2.2.1 3G
backed it up
i had games in a folder from categories (from cydia of course) and used a MIM thing for the carried
after i updated my 3G S it still somehow has the custrom carrier which i guess doesnt bother me.. although it will if i get a new gf but my games dont show up!!!!
somehow something from the old hacked software caught on to my new 3.0 clean software.. what do i do now??

go to settings-general-restrictions- enable restrictions - exit

go to settings-general-restriction- disable- exit

they should all appear. i had the same problem and that fixed it, it took me a good while to find that solution online. let me know if that helps.

[RqThrottle]

My pre-ordered upgrade from a 2G was "waiting for activation" since yesterday at 7 pm. I called 866.895.1099 as another poster suggested and after accepting the terms&agreement and a couple security questions, I was up and running.

Give this a shot.

[iPhoneNYC]

Activation issues have occurred on the first days of each big launch. Problems go away in a day or two. I guess we just have to be patient. Apple released 3.o a couple of days before the Big Rush but that didn't seem to help.

[Houls]

seemed like my activation was hanging.......then I ejected the SIM card with the little tool in the packaging and replaced it and the phone activated immediately - worth a try - TC

Mine was hanging in the waiting to activate screen for about 30 minutes. I callled AT&T to complain. They isued me a $50 credit and apologized for the delay. I then ejected the SIM, popped it back in and voila it worked. The $50 credit certainly hits the spot.

[alexacker]

Pre-ordered a 32GB from Apple for myself and a 16BG from ATT for my wife.
For 1 hour on the Apple order, I had no service. The trick to get it started was to simply restart. Activated my wife's on a ATT and the trick to get this one started was activating online at att.com/activations.

Both up and running now. Good luck!

[andy721]

Man f this still nada this whole AT&T is horse sh#t i dont get it

[bruinsrme]

Ok ... umm no ... what i said is the serial # is attached to the phone # ... not the sim ... the sim is independent ... Yeah I know the sim doesn't matter as when I bought by first 3g contract free... This one though I bought with a contract and apple apparently sends the phone serial # attached to a phone # ... NOT SIM ... serial # attached to phone # ... Is what I said therefore if you have a phone come to you that does not have your number and apparently is pre something or anothered by apple then it will not work ... No matter what sim ...

The media ... this is a forum ... look I like apple ... but they messed up my shipping order when I ordered the 9th ... that equals me not happy.

You need to learn how to type/write. You make no sense when you talk.
As I believe you mention, the serial # is attached to the phone number. So therefore, it should not matter what SIM I use. Either it be the "unactivated" NEW one that came with my 3GS or my OLD 3G sim (which is already 'activated' to my number). Mine is working with my old 3G sim, so why are you still arguing. You're wrong.

If you provided your info in a similar way you write, perhaps apple did the best they could with the jibberish provided.

The serial number or the phone is located on the sim tray as well as in the setting screens.

[casmith07]

Man f this still nada this whole AT&T is horse sh#t i dont get it

It's on Apple's end not AT&T. Go into the store and get them to activate it in store -- the reason is that SO many people are trying to activate that the servers are getting destroyed.

Take an hour of your time and go to your nearest AT&T store. I picked mine up yesterday and the guy in store activated it and mine was working before I walked out of the door, AND it was ported from Verizon.

[pmon914]

Ok ... umm no ... what i said is the serial # is attached to the phone # ... not the sim ... the sim is independent ... Yeah I know the sim doesn't matter as when I bought by first 3g contract free... This one though I bought with a contract and apple apparently sends the phone serial # attached to a phone # ... NOT SIM ... serial # attached to phone # ... Is what I said therefore if you have a phone come to you that does not have your number and apparently is pre something or anothered by apple then it will not work ... No matter what sim ...

This is what I was told by the AT&T rep as well. I bought the phone under my wife's upgrade and am trying to use it on my line. I'm not saying its 100% true....I'm just saying that this is the answer that they are giving. Its amazing how little they know about the iPhone products. I guess I am going to have to go to an AT&T store and see what they tell me.

[EarthDawn]

I went to an AT&T store only because I saw the line was 2 people instead of the 50 around the corner at Apple.
From the time I got on line, till i got helped and had the purchase was about 10 minutes.
By the time I walked out of the mall my new 3Gs was fully functional.

They were nice and fast and I was impressed

[HouseofG]

This is what I was told by the AT&T rep as well. I bought the phone under my wife's upgrade and am trying to use it on my line. I'm not saying its 100% true....I'm just saying that this is the answer that they are giving. Its amazing how little they know about the iPhone products. I guess I am going to have to go to an AT&T store and see what they tell me.

Relevant to the above post (I think), I upgraded my wife's line to the 3GS (before AT&T announced the subsidized price for 3Gs) and gave her my 3G. I simply put her new sim in my 3G and it worked for her line immediately. I put my existing 3G sim in the 3GS and the 3GS activated fine (after I used the 866.895.1099 number at least).

Edit: Hmm..thinking about it further, I may have that backwards. It would make no sense that I activated my current SIM on MY line just because it was in the 3GS. Damn phones look exactly alike..haha! Maybe it was indeed the 3G with her new sim that I activated. Either way, the switch worked fine.

I did find those ATT quick start instructions humorous. They apparently feel it is imperative that the phone not be turned on until it is fully charged (saying that turning your phone on before this is achieved could cause activation problems). How do you leave the phone off AND charge it fully? Doesn't it turn on as soon as you plug it into the outlet? Well, both of the phones I have certainly do.

[jsamuels]

:30 second activation for existing AT&T account with iPhone shipped by Apple.

[blindzero]

So weird- this was the quickest firmware update and activation experience I've had so far.

30 second activation for me upgrading old iPhone about 10AM EST yesterday.

30 Second activation for a friend transferring number from Verizon about 2PM EST.

[Ciel Rouge]

Let me get this straight. Those of us who had to switch in our old SIM card to get the new 3gS to work will eventually have to switch to the new card when AT&T gets their act together? If this is true I don't like the fact that I may not be home to switch the SIMs when this happens - unless I carry my new SIM with me at all times just to be prepared :rolleyes:

Can someone confirm this is the case?

[rsbell]

Let me get this straight. Those of us who had to switch in our old SIM card to get the new 3gS to work will eventually have to switch to the new card when AT&T gets their act together? If this is true I don't like the fact that I may not be home to switch the SIMs when this happens - unless I carry my new SIM with me at all times just to be prepared :rolleyes:

Can someone confirm this is the case?

This is exactly what happened to me: put in old SIM card last night, woke up this morning and had no service, so I put the new SIM in the phone and it was activated.

Carry the new one and tool with you so when the new card is activated you can switch them out.

[dustycoder]

My pre-ordered upgrade from a 2G was "waiting for activation" since yesterday at 7 pm. I called 866.895.1099 as another poster suggested and after accepting the terms&agreement and a couple security questions, I was up and running.

Give this a shot.

Worked for me and I didn't think it would because I:

1. Called ATT and the guy said he manually activated it by updating my IMEI and SIM card information.
2. Verified activation with an Apple tech after talking with the ATT guy.
3. Tried to use att.com/activations but it said everything had already been upgraded.

After all that I was still getting "Waiting to activate" on the phone. So I didn't think that number was going to work for me but it did.

Thanks to all who suggested it!

[entity]

Just got off the phone with AT&T.

The call took about 15 minutes, the rep was very helpful.

I purchased my phone online through Apple, and apparently AT&T didn't see me with an iPhone. They didn't even sign me up for data.

All is fixed now. No more iPod Touch with a contract!

[guycocoa]

UPS sent my iPhone 3GS out for delivery at 7:22 AM on Friday. Unfortunately, they put it on the wrong truck. At 9:34 PM they finally declared a delivery exception and rescheduled delivery for Monday. By that time, however, no one was available at the local UPS facility to answer questions. They closed at 7:00 PM. On Monday no one will be home, and where I live you don't dare sign in advance for the delivery as you can't trust the UPS guy to deliver the package ("Of course I delivered it."). I called Apple and they said I can cancel the order, but their system can't release my upgrade with AT&T for 7 days. So, if I want to go buy the phone at an AT&T store, or an Apple store, I can do so, but I have to pay the full price, not the upgrade price.

What is really galling is that the phone came from China, 10,000 miles away and made it to within 15 miles of my house, but it can't get the last 15 miles. The phone was held in Louisville for two days because Apple wanted all the phones delivered on June 19. If they had delivered it when it came into the country, instead of trying to make a big splash, then a rescheduled delivery could have taken place on Friday instead of waiting over the weekend.

The lesson here is don't buy online from Apple. Too many things can go wrong. If I had just gone to the AT&T store two blocks from my house I would have my phone and been happy. Now I'm in the situation where I don't know when, or if, I can get the phone I have already paid for and for which my upgrade with AT&T is locked.

[scirocco]

I upgraded from a 3G to a 3GS via on-line order from AT&T. I had activation delays, and finally just switched the SIM cards. That was about 16 hours ago. The 3GS seems to be working fine with the old 3G SIM card. Is there any reason I should worry about leaving the old SIM in the new phone? It doesn't seem that there are any functionality issues . . .

[Wegmans]

I upgraded from a 3G to a 3GS via on-line order from AT&T. I had activation delays, and finally just switched the SIM cards. That was about 16 hours ago. The 3GS seems to be working fine with the old 3G SIM card. Is there any reason I should worry about leaving the old SIM in the new phone? It doesn't seem that there are any functionality issues . . .

I am very interested in the answer to the above question as well.

Furthermore, I cannot receive any incoming calls to my 3GS... texts and data are fine, but anyone who calls me can hear me fine, but I cannot hear them. I went to the ATT store last night, and the guy called his phone and it worked, but as soon as i left the store a friend called me and no sound came through on my end.

So pretty much I call people, tell them what's up, and then if anything changes they have to txt me. Can anyone help me rectify this?

Thanks


EDIT: So the speaker is broken I guess... speakerphone works fine, i can hear people, but no sound comes through the headset speaker!

What do I do?

[HouseofG]

As I indicated above, switching SIMs (putting my old 3G SIM in my new 3GS) has worked fine.

[La Porta]

UPS sent my iPhone 3GS out for delivery at 7:22 AM on Friday. Unfortunately, they put it on the wrong truck. At 9:34 PM they finally declared a delivery exception and rescheduled delivery for Monday. By that time, however, no one was available at the local UPS facility to answer questions. They closed at 7:00 PM. On Monday no one will be home, and where I live you don't dare sign in advance for the delivery as you can't trust the UPS guy to deliver the package ("Of course I delivered it."). I called Apple and they said I can cancel the order, but their system can't release my upgrade with AT&T for 7 days. So, if I want to go buy the phone at an AT&T store, or an Apple store, I can do so, but I have to pay the full price, not the upgrade price.

What is really galling is that the phone came from China, 10,000 miles away and made it to within 15 miles of my house, but it can't get the last 15 miles. The phone was held in Louisville for two days because Apple wanted all the phones delivered on June 19. If they had delivered it when it came into the country, instead of trying to make a big splash, then a rescheduled delivery could have taken place on Friday instead of waiting over the weekend.

The lesson here is don't buy online from Apple. Too many things can go wrong. If I had just gone to the AT&T store two blocks from my house I would have my phone and been happy. Now I'm in the situation where I don't know when, or if, I can get the phone I have already paid for and for which my upgrade with AT&T is locked.

Just have them hold it at the UPS office, then drive there and pick it up. Simple.

[Wegmans]

As I indicated above, switching SIMs (putting my old 3G SIM in my new 3GS) has worked fine.

Hi there, so I switched SIMs, just to try, and it didn't work for me. It kept saying it was searching for signal.. What are your thoughts?

[pmm1221]

Be careful if you popped your old 1st Gen iPhone SIM into your new 3G S in order to make it work. Even though you get an "activated" message, that doesn't mean it switched you over to the new plan. I switched the SIMs last night but my new plan didn't go into effect until today (when I got an email from Apple). Any activity (SMSs and use of the 3G data network) before it truly activated was against the old plan, which didn't have a 3G data plan. If you don't call AT&T about this, you may get charged for that data usage. I called and they assured me they would credit any charges incurred between popping in the new SIM and when their systems were updated.

[HouseofG]

Hi there, so I switched SIMs, just to try, and it didn't work for me. It kept saying it was searching for signal.. What are your thoughts?

And you are using 3G SIM cards in each right (just asking since the above poster warned against using 1st gen iPhone SIMs)?

The only thing I can suggest is rebooting the phone and then (assuming that didn't work) calling the 866.895.1099 number to activate (assuming you are having issues with the phone that has the new SIM). Does it even say it's trying to activate (the "this may take some time" message)?

[jamest71]

It sucks some people had problems but my experience was way better then expected.
My concierge hooked the iPhone up to a Mac to start the activation process. He told me it would be a couple of minutes, possibly 2 hours. He disconnected the phone and told me I should get a text saying the phone is activated. As he was handing me the phone the activation text came through. He hit dismiss and before he gave the phone to me I got a text from my gf. I shook the guys hand and I was on the phone leaving the store.

[jamest71]

UPS sent my iPhone 3GS out for delivery at 7:22 AM on Friday. Unfortunately, they put it on the wrong truck. At 9:34 PM they finally declared a delivery exception and rescheduled delivery for Monday. By that time, however, no one was available at the local UPS facility to answer questions. They closed at 7:00 PM. On Monday no one will be home, and where I live you don't dare sign in advance for the delivery as you can't trust the UPS guy to deliver the package ("Of course I delivered it."). I called Apple and they said I can cancel the order, but their system can't release my upgrade with AT&T for 7 days. So, if I want to go buy the phone at an AT&T store, or an Apple store, I can do so, but I have to pay the full price, not the upgrade price.

What is really galling is that the phone came from China, 10,000 miles away and made it to within 15 miles of my house, but it can't get the last 15 miles. The phone was held in Louisville for two days because Apple wanted all the phones delivered on June 19. If they had delivered it when it came into the country, instead of trying to make a big splash, then a rescheduled delivery could have taken place on Friday instead of waiting over the weekend.

The lesson here is don't buy online from Apple. Too many things can go wrong. If I had just gone to the AT&T store two blocks from my house I would have my phone and been happy. Now I'm in the situation where I don't know when, or if, I can get the phone I have already paid for and for which my upgrade with AT&T is locked.

UPS screwed up not Apple.

[eme jota ce]

After about an hour of awaiting activation (actually transfer of service from 3G to 3GS), I called AT&T. The AT&T rep was clearly clueless and wanted to blame "iTunes."

I told her I needed her to "push through my activation" and she was able to do something in their system that, after I shut down and restarted my phone, resulted in immediate service activation.

Hope this helps anyone in similar straits.

[olegandbuster25]

go to settings-general-restrictions- enable restrictions - exit

go to settings-general-restriction- disable- exit

they should all appear. i had the same problem and that fixed it, it took me a good while to find that solution online. let me know if that helps.

it worked!!!
thank you so much, i hardly ever get on this macrumors comment thing but what do you know... there are people on here that can help.
didnt fix the carrier thing but like i said i dont care... and the carrier update probably will..
Thank again!!!

[unbeliev3r]

For those of you having activation issues for "Upgrades", this is what worked for me. Go to att.com/Activations and follow the prompts. At the end of the process it asks to switch off your phone for at least 15 mins before starting it up again. Going through this process and then following the 15 mins shutdown process worked immediately. All the other recommendations in this forum nor calling ATT reps worked for me. Hope this helps those who still have activation issues.

[casmith07]

After about an hour of awaiting activation (actually transfer of service from 3G to 3GS), I called AT&T. The AT&T rep was clearly clueless and wanted to blame "iTunes."

I told her I needed her to "push through my activation" and she was able to do something in their system that, after I shut down and restarted my phone, resulted in immediate service activation.

Hope this helps anyone in similar straits.

yes -- this is what they can do. The AT&T guy that helped me at the store yesterday said for if some reason it didn't activate to come back and he would "force" the activation, but they only do it in extreme cases.

It worked just fine for me though - activated and placing and receiving calls and voicemail set up all within 30 minutes of taking it out of the box.

[twoodcc]

not the first time this has happened, but you'd think they would be prepared by now

[Synergy37]

Situation: Upgrading from 2G to 3GS. The new SIM card would not work, but using the old SIM card did.

Solution: Called ATT and they lady on the phone was very helpful and said I needed to activate the new device and accept some TOS. Went through this and turned off the phone, put in new SIM, turned on, and the phone now works.

[m-lo]

You would figure both Apple and ATT would have learned from the 3G debcle last year *sigh* glad I didnt upgrade yet. C'mon ATT let the 3Gers upgrade early for 199/299!

[bytethese]

For what it's worth, I was told by an Apple rep when I purchased my 3Gs that "Your activation make take a wh....oh, looks like it just activated." :)

[rappr]

I was upgrading my fiancee's iPhone 2G to 3GS, then swapping the 3GS with my 3G. Tried to activate 3GS and got the "may have to wait 48 hours" message. Called AT&T and they got it activated over the phone in about 10 minutes. Swapped sim cards between my 3G and the 3GS, and we're all set!

[DiamondMac]

I do understand how frustrating it can be as I have gone through what many have with the last 2 iPhones.

But, the fact is (and at this point, it is a fact), Apple can't promise 100% success on release days whether that is activation problems or something else.

Now, some have 0 problems and more power to them....but as we can see on this forum alone....MANY have problems on the release days

The solution is just to wait until later in the nights to activate OR download the software later that night.

[megfilmworks]

Oh my!

[mwdbruno]

Update to my personal dilemma, in case anyone else has been down this road...

Girlfriend took phone to the not exactly local ATT store @ 10:30AM. They tried a restore, 12 different SIM cards, 3 calls to Apple, 2 Managers and a District Manager...and no success...

Apple still recommends they replace the phone...of course they are sold out!

I really like my new 32 GB iPaperweight though :)

[aristotle]

Wow AT&T customers have such bad luck with these things. :( I went to buy a 32GB 3GS on my lunch break. When I got to my office, I swapped the SIM from my 8GB iPhone 3G into the new iPhone and it activated within seconds.

I'm thinking of unlocking my old 3G and selling it on ebay.

[aristotle]

Update to my personal dilemma, in case anyone else has been down this road...

Girlfriend took phone to the not exactly local ATT store @ 10:30AM. They tried a restore, 12 different SIM cards, 3 calls to Apple, 2 Managers and a District Manager...and no success...

Apple still recommends they replace the phone...of course they are sold out!

I really like my new 32 GB iPaperweight though :)
Did you have an AT&T SIM before? If so, simply doing the initial setup without a SIM at the store and replacing the sim later at home would not have worked for you?

[Wegmans]

So i'm going to have to get a replacement 3GS, I have a genius bar appointment tomorrow, but man this sucks! Like someone said before, I love my 32GB iPaperweight!

[creativepath]

I thought I was in activation limbo and called AT&T twice with no luck...

Then I just power-cycled the phone - according to the advice above - and it was active! phew.

[bikertwin]

Got the phone yesterday, connected to iTunes and it said wait for activation
Still nothing after 25 hrs & rebooting phone several times.
Called 866 number from earlier in this thread and it said phone was already activated.
Called AT&T and they said it was Apple's server problem, so they transferred me to Apple.
Apple rep was like WTF??!! and transferred me back to ATT and explained problem.
AT&T rep took my serial & IMEI #s from new phone and said we might get disconnected. He told me to shut off new phone first...
We got disconnected, so I restarted new phone and voilà, I had phone service!
He called me back to set up data, but no 3G symbol on phone and Safari didn't work.
I turned off phone and rebooted and--voilà again--I now have a fully functioning phone!

[livingonvideo13]

I tried to activate my phone Friday afternoon and it told me the 48 hours to activate. I waited a few hours but needed to use my phone so I just put in my old sim card from the 1st gen iphone and it was working.

24 hours later I get a text message from AT&T the says "Your data plan is ineligible for iPhone 3g. to prevent excess charges and enable Visual Voicemail, contact your telecom manager or AT&T"

I put back in my new Sim card that came with the phone and still get no service so put my old Sim card back in. I am guessing that my old one will be cut off which I will then put the new one back in and hopefully have service.

I have been using the 3G service with my old Sim in the 3gs and they better not be charging me "extra" since it is their fault they are taking so long to active my new sim.

[aristotle]

Are any of you guys existing 3G service customer being told to get a new SIM? If so, why? They should be able to do the pre-SIM set up at the store and you should be able to take your existing SIM and use it right away.

[gwangung]

Old cell phone number with the old provider rings when the number is called, but the iPhone is up and working...

[michelle21]

Umm no YOUR 100% wrong.

How do I know? I have a 100% working iPhone 3G S. For your information, my the phone's SERIAL number is different than the SIM ID #. So if my phone number is registered to my phone's serial, why would changing the SIM matter? My serial is that of my brand new 3S and it is paid with my existing and current phone number. The SIM ID is entirely separate.

You my friend, are wrong. Thank you.

Oh - and PS: I still had to connect to iTunes. But it did not activate the same way as all of you are doing.

Partly right, if you swap sims, call ATT and they will update their systems. In fact I needed to swap my two lines, the support person changed some settings in the system than had me swap sims.

[fetchin007]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7A341 Safari/528.16)

I have to say the pre-order option was the moat amaZing thing ever--it made the process so simple and I didn't hav any issues activating either.

[C1KK]

Still wasn't activated after 24 hours, decided to take some advice and call AT&T, luckily I spoke to someone that knew what they were doing, he asked for my SIM card number, call got disconected, and 2 minutes later my 3GS was activated with service.

[caliguy]

Finally, mine works.

Yesterday, when I got my iPhone, I called about 4 times throughout the day to try to get my iPhone to activate. Each rep told me that unless power off/on fixes my problem, I just have to wait (which doesn't make sense, there has to be an underlying problem as thousands of others in my area activated just fine).

Today, I call and the rep simply has me give her my IMEI number and my SIM card number for the new 3G S. It works. Why don't those idiots run me through these steps 20 hours beforehand?

Also, according to an AT&T manager, MMS on iPhone already works. Hmm.

[Dominus]

Okay, as I posted earlier, tried power-cycling, popping out sim, calling AT&T multiple times, was told to keep powercycling and call later if it still didn't activate. Apple store also was clueless when I called them.

Based on posts here, I called AT&T again this morning and told them to check and make sure I was registered as an iPhone 3G S phone not as my old iPhone. I told them to check the IMEI number (it's on the box) and the SIM chip number (you have to pop this out of the iPhone and read it to them).

Sure enough, it wasn't updated! As far as I know, you're never going to get activated if you don't do this. Sure enough, at least some of our home-delivered iPhones aren't properly set up in their system.

With respect to those who had no problems with activation, you're just making it harder for people with problems to find solutions if you keep posting what a breeze it was for some of you. No offense.

[gwangung]

With respect to those who had no problems with activation, you're just making it harder for people with problems to find solutions if you keep posting what a breeze it was for some of you. No offense.

Actually, I would think it would be somewhat useful in ruling out some factors that AREN'T at fault....but that's just me...

[Toadkillerdog]

Okay, as I posted earlier, tried power-cycling, popping out sim, calling AT&T multiple times, was told to keep powercycling and call later if it still didn't activate. Apple store also was clueless when I called them.

Based on posts here, I called AT&T again this morning and told them to check and make sure I was registered as an iPhone 3G S phone not as my old iPhone. I told them to check the IMEI number (it's on the box) and the SIM chip number (you have to pop this out of the iPhone and read it to them).

Sure enough, it wasn't updated! As far as I know, you're never going to get activated if you don't do this. Sure enough, at least some of our home-delivered iPhones aren't properly set up in their system.

With respect to those who had no problems with activation, you're just making it harder for people with problems to find solutions if you keep posting what a breeze it was for some of you. No offense.

It went smoothly for me at about 4pm on Friday. No probs whatsoever...

(Could not resist)

However, backing up original iphone to iTunes took 8 hours on Vista 64. No solution I have read anywhere speeds up my backups. Think it is a Vista 64 bug. Couldn't use the new phone for hours.

[jeremymaxwell]

I read on this thread about trying restarting the Iphone, and it worked...I got the phone at 5 PM Friday, and nothing happened until I restarted the Iphone at 9 AM Sat Morning. Instantly connected.
Bad thing was that the Apple Store People told me I would still recieve incoming calls on my Blackberry (T Mobile) until the iphone was conected. That was a lie. The second I signed on for the Iphone, T Mobile shut my Blackberry down.
It also would have been nice if The Apple Sales gave you a heads up about restarting in case the Phone Doesn't connect, instead of making us hunt down info on MAc Forums... But thanks to mac forums anyway.

[mwdbruno]

Did you have an AT&T SIM before? If so, simply doing the initial setup without a SIM at the store and replacing the sim later at home would not have worked for you?

I did have an ATT SIM on a Blackberry Pearl.

UPDATE: Girlfriend went to ATT - spent 4 hours there and they could not resolve the issue. Got on the phone with Apple...Apple says the phone is defective -- and DEMANDED $400 (above and beyond what she paid for the 32GM 3GS!) as collateral for a new phone to be shipped to the ATT Store on Monday!!!

Again, this is my first experience with the Iphone and Apple...I'm impressed! :mad:

[aristotle]

I did have an ATT SIM on a Blackberry Pearl.

UPDATE: Girlfriend went to ATT - spent 4 hours there and they could not resolve the issue. Got on the phone with Apple...Apple says the phone is defective -- and DEMANDED $400 (above and beyond what she paid for the 32GM 3GS!) as collateral for a new phone to be shipped to the ATT Store on Monday!!!

Again, this is my first experience with the Iphone and Apple...I'm impressed! :mad:
The logical first step would have been to try that sim first. Maybe your phone is defective but it sounds like you and you gf put the AT&T staffers through the ringer already with a bunch of impatience by trying a bunch of SIMs.

I've never really had any issues with any of my Apple devices but then again, I don't take things so damn seriously. Calm down and you are likely to have better luck in life. Stop trying to force everything to happen on your own schedule. I've found that if I'm in a rush, delays will happen but if I just go with the flow, everything seems to work out much faster.

[wkrp28]

My 3GS was delivered by UPS Friday morning. I got the dreaded "this may take some time" message about activation. I waited five hours, called Apple and AT&T, and still no joy. I finally decided to put my 3G SIM into the 3GS. Worked like a charm. Got on a plane to Munich and when I arrived, the 3GS wouldn't connect to any network. When I got to the hotel I dug the 3G out of my bag, popped the SIM, put it back into the 3GS where it came from, and voila, it worked... finally. Not the smoothest iPhone experience I've had by a long shot, but at least it's over.

[EmptyG]

Got one via FedEx for my Dad on Friday at 1:30. Everything went smoothly but activation took several hours. I wound up calling AT&T, who did everything they could to get things moving along. They finally transferred me to Apple who did everything they could. More waiting. Did all the reboots, airplane mode, power cycling, etc. Nothing. Finally after about 6 hours, I ejected the SIM again and power cycled and VOILA! Success!

I want to give AT&T and Apple big shouts for their customer support. I could tell they were very overloaded yesterday but everyone I talked to was fantastic and very helpful. We even had to change his iPhone number to a new local area code number and they waived the fee for us because of our wait. Other than the long wait, it went as smooth as it could. I am SO jealous of the 3GS. I have the 3G and love it, but the speed improvements alone make the upgrade worth it. At least it will be when I get upgrade pricing in December!

[mwdbruno]

The logical first step would have been to try that sim first. Maybe your phone is defective but it sounds like you and you gf put the AT&T staffers through the ringer already with a bunch of impatience by trying a bunch of SIMs.

I've never really had any issues with any of my Apple devices but then again, I don't take things so damn seriously. Calm down and you are likely to have better luck in life. Stop trying to force everything to happen on your own schedule. I've found that if I'm in a rush, delays will happen but if I just go with the flow, everything seems to work out much faster.

Interesting response...but with all due respect,

I assume it is ok in your book to purchase an item that does not operate and then have a demand from the responsible party not own up to correcting the circumstance?

I have been in retail management and finance operations in high end consumer products for over a decade and would NEVER treat a valued customer with such disregard. At a minimum I require we put the customer first when a problem can not be easily solved. And can't fathom asking a consumer to place a deposit for more than the original purchase price of the merchandise so I could attempt to resolve the defective device that had never been used.

To clarify, as often happens in online forums, it is nearly impossible to show emotion in type...and I'm not "trying to force" and "rush". Simply I/we have paid for an item, that was supposed to be functional upon arrival and have yet to have anyone offer a valid solution that I am satisfied with or an functional piece of merchandise I can utilize. With payment I was inherently expecting the phone to be functional...and it is not. I don't feel that is overly demanding, just a bit of consumer rights.

[JRcopper]

I showed up at 7 AM with a reservation for the new iPhone. The entire experience was a pleasure. My phone was activated within minutes after I paid for it. Since I already use MobileMe I had my more than 1500 Contacts and my calendar updated in the new iPhone less than 5 minutes after it had been activated. I am sure there are problems in some places but I think Apple has done a great job in the launch and the updated device. Now they need to provide apps to run in the background and make the email a bit more user friendly. As of now the email is not better than a Blackberry. Everything else is very good especially the speed of Safari. Almost as good as a new computer faster than old ones.

[BrockW15]

Just call 866.895.1099 and tell them that you heard that you could speed up the activation problem by giving both your IMEI and SIM number. That's how I did it and it worked flawlessly. I had waited almost 24 hours but after calling AT&T, it took less than 5 minutes to activate.

[dos Gris]

Please call At&T at 800 331-0500. 24 hours is enough waiting. Have them use your sim number (Settings>General>About- ECCID) and IMEI (same location) number and have them activate from their system. If it hasn't worked now, you probably have a plan issue, especially if you have multiple smartphones on a family plan.

There was no wait and the process took perhaps ten minutes.

Problem with swapping sims that that if you are going to give the previous phone (thinking 1st gen), it won't work as an "iPhone Touch", unless I am mistaken.

Good luck!

[mwdbruno]

Please call At&T at 800 331-0500. 24 hours is enough waiting. Have them use your sim number (Settings>General>About- ECCID) and IMEI (same location) number and have them activate from their system. If it hasn't worked now, you probably have a plan issue, especially if you have multiple smartphones on a family plan.

There was no wait and the process took perhaps ten minutes.

Problem with swapping sims that that if you are going to give the previous phone (thinking 1st gen), it won't work as an "iPhone Touch", unless I am mistaken.

Good luck!

Thanks. Tried that last night with a very nice ATT rep to no avail. I think we've resolved it to being a defective iphone. My next hurdle is trying to figure out how it is just and right to pay a $400 deposit to replace an inoperable iphone we've already paid $300 for...

Thanks again for all of the suggestions!! That is why after lurking for quite a while I signed up for my macrumors account.

[robertn409]

I ordered two iPhone GS', one for myself to replace my old iPhone, and one for my wife to replace a Nokia. On the 19th, at 7:00 p.m. I activated my iPhone 3GS 32mb. No problem, about 15 seconds and the "iPhone is activated" screen. Then I went to activate my second iPhone GS 16gb that I bought for my wife, got the 48 hour wait screen! This morning, Saturday, I went to my local ATT store, and was the first customer when they opened at 10:00. Hector Flores, was the customer service rep who worked with me, and I told him that I could not get the phone to activate. He said that I would leave with a working phone. It took about 45 minutes to accomplish, due to the fact that for some reason my account would not allow the change to iPhone from Nokia. It kept trying to set it to Nokia. They ended up calling several people up the service chain of command, and finally got it working. They were courteous to a fault. So I am a "happy camper".

[ogdogg]

Just activated mine in the store. Took 2 minutes...

[bbbaseball22]

This same thing happened to me and I called at&t and they knew the answer for me. It was because my sim card number wasn't the correct number so this same thing happened to me. If this is happening to you you should call at&t and see if this is your problem.

Hope this helped!

[brianmc]

I had issues with my 3GS activation and I was trying to use another member's upgrade on my family account. Lots of issues with the ATT customer service reps who weren't sure how to handle or they provided conflicting messages. I had ordered mine through the mail to avoid the lines. Luckily I decided to stop by a store after lunch today, seeing that the crowds had died down. They fixed it in no time and the clerk was surprised they didn't instruct me to come into the store. Lesson learned...when your iPhone activation involves more than one account, then go directly to the att store. Oh well, I guess I had to wait 12 hours to enjoy the 3gs. Worth the wait. I just filmed a friend's baby who was born at 1:18 am this morning so it was indeed a great purchase. The video works great on newborns!!! Can you say awww...

[Xenious]

Just activated mine at home (had not had a chance yesterday). Mine worked instantly with no delay. Here was the process I used (exactly as the instructions read).

I was upgrading from a 2G

1) Turn off the 2G iPhone
2) Dock and power on 3GS
3) After going through confirmation process of zip, etc undock iPhone
4) Dock iPhone again
5) Activation complete, sync away!

Boo ya!

[jeffmo]

i have to say that att customer service has really been on point during this whole process from my personal experience.. i didn't have any problems with the initial activation (thank goodness), but i did have some issues regarding my phone number and the activation of "my wireless" but both issues were taken care of swiftly over the phone in a very courteous manner.. coming from experience with verizon and most recently tmobile, this is hands down the best customer service i've ever received.. ever

kudos for att handling this overloaded work weekend.. i'm looking forward to the next two years and from the looks of things now, i won't need to be carrier hopping anymore

[jeffmo]

now if only there was a blogspot app to blog on the go easily.. hmmmm

[tennisbum]

Got mine yesterday morning as I was leaving my place. Didn't have a chance to do anything 'til the evening around 6:30pm. Plugged the new iPhone 3GS in and activated in iTunes without any issues.

[guycocoa]

UPS screwed up not Apple.

Look at the title of the post: "UPS Screwed Up and Now I'm Screwed"

The problem with ordering online is that Apple doesn't control the entire experience. They are at the mercy of the delivery companies.

[outcast316]

activated..took 39 hours.

[COBRASVT]

I had to call twice as I'm new to AT&T and ported over my #. Both times, they answered w/in 3 min's and solved my issues. They had to manually activate me and update my act w the correct options. But was handled quickly. :-)

[keith-o]

Been waiting since Friday, 19th at 7pm. Its now Sat at 11:30 and still not activated.

Also, I lost my data plan and VM on my original iphone when I updated to 3.0 Thursday night. That wasnt solved by ATT until saturday at noon.

[PinkyMacGodess]

While I was in my not so local Apple Store four people came in with #Gs phones that were either DOA or had died within the first hours of use.

One wouldn't charge, one had a dead ear speaker, one wouldn't sync and one was just plain dead, inert...

Is that indicative of a quality issue for the 3Gs iPhone? They evidently had quite a few in with issues. They were booked solid for the weekend and not taking any new reservations at the Genius Bar. They also appeared to have more than the normal number of people working the bar too.

[TLewis]

i have to say that att customer service has really been on point during this whole process from my personal experience..
As much as I dislike AT&T, I do have to give them credit for handling customer calls properly. We had to call them twice for activation, once for my 3GS, and once for my wife's, and both calls were reasonably handled, without any long waits. One guy did carry courtesy to ludicrous heights, though: while working on some kind of long activation task, he'd apologize every 30 seconds or so -- and he'd wait for a response from us every time.

Still, in an ideal world, people wouldn't have to call AT&T customer support, and AT&T wouldn't have to spend a major fortune on customer support.

[ec51]

Be careful if you popped your old 1st Gen iPhone SIM into your new 3G S in order to make it work. Even though you get an "activated" message, that doesn't mean it switched you over to the new plan. I switched the SIMs last night but my new plan didn't go into effect until today (when I got an email from Apple). Any activity (SMSs and use of the 3G data network) before it truly activated was against the old plan, which didn't have a 3G data plan. If you don't call AT&T about this, you may get charged for that data usage. I called and they assured me they would credit any charges incurred between popping in the new SIM and when their systems were updated.

Ugh...people need to understand what is going on.

Why would this matter? If you had a FIRST gen iPhone then even if your data didnt switch, it would be fine (provided you had the old gen data plan). Just because you have a 3G iphone now, doesnt mean you are using "NEW" data, it just means you are connecting at 3G speeds. The data plan - i.e., the data you are using is the same stuff. Believe me, how do I know - had a friend using a 3G with an old gen iphone for about...a year. No problems...

[TLewis]

Been waiting since Friday, 19th at 7pm. Its now Sat at 11:30 and still not activated.
Did you give them a call?

If you haven't, try that. My wife and I both got the "please wait for activation", and we just called one of the numbers listed in this thread. Result: mine got activated within a hour (yesterday), and hers was activated while we were on the phone with the rep (today).

[Jamie 360]

activated..took 39 hours.

Alright, here's my deal: I've been a 2G user since the first week of release. My 32gig 3Gs was delivered on release day. Thinking I was dodging the crowd, I plugged in to activate at 11:55 (Sat. night) and I got the 48 hour notice. Now here's where I'm confused: My 2G is still running, making phone calls, etc. Now am I to assume that all of a sudden, at the carrier's discretion, that my 2G will suddenly be "deactivated" and the new phone will be activated? Shall I be carrying 2 phones at once to make sure I have phone service?? Alright, so GSM phone service throughout time has been a matter of popping your sim card in and out of various different devices....am I missing something?? 48 hours?? Should I just take my sim card out of the 2G and put it in the 3Gs??
Totall confused.......:confused:

[bronzini]

This is exactly what happened to me: put in old SIM card last night, woke up this morning and had no service, so I put the new SIM in the phone and it was activated.

Carry the new one and tool with you so when the new card is activated you can switch them out.

Happened to me today. Go the NO Service message about 6:50pm. When I got home later I had a activation notice from Apple. Mind you AT & T activated me on line when I called with the old simm. apparently the systems sync'd up and the old sim is now dead so......

[iMaggot]

Have some patients guys ;)

[DiamondMac]

Have some patients guys ;)

:confused:;)

[caliguy]

Alright, here's my deal: I've been a 2G user since the first week of release. My 32gig 3Gs was delivered on release day. Thinking I was dodging the crowd, I plugged in to activate at 11:55 (Sat. night) and I got the 48 hour notice. Now here's where I'm confused: My 2G is still running, making phone calls, etc. Now am I to assume that all of a sudden, at the carrier's discretion, that my 2G will suddenly be "deactivated" and the new phone will be activated? Shall I be carrying 2 phones at once to make sure I have phone service?? Alright, so GSM phone service throughout time has been a matter of popping your sim card in and out of various different devices....am I missing something?? 48 hours?? Should I just take my sim card out of the 2G and put it in the 3Gs??
Totall confused.......:confused:

There should be no reason for activation delays at this point IMO. I would imagine your problem is the same as mine was. Call AT&T, it could be that your phone isn't in the system and you'll need to give them your IMEI number along with the SIM number of your new iPhone 3G S.

[Zimpaz]

not really an activation delay, buts its taking O2 until the 24th to port my old number over! Thats 3 days of carrying 2 phones around!!!

Loving the 3GS though :o)

Zim

[andy721]

I shouldn't need to give them my IMEI number along with the SIM number.

I wonder if taking legal action would actually result in my subscription with AT&T and along with a law suit. This is ****** BS. Enough is Enough

[AtlasBoy]

Look at the title of the post: "UPS Screwed Up and Now I'm Screwed"

The problem with ordering online is that Apple doesn't control the entire experience. They are at the mercy of the delivery companies.

Umm.... How did the phones get to the stores? Did Apple take them there or the delivery companies?

[zedsdead]

Alright, here's my deal: I've been a 2G user since the first week of release. My 32gig 3Gs was delivered on release day. Thinking I was dodging the crowd, I plugged in to activate at 11:55 (Sat. night) and I got the 48 hour notice. Now here's where I'm confused: My 2G is still running, making phone calls, etc. Now am I to assume that all of a sudden, at the carrier's discretion, that my 2G will suddenly be "deactivated" and the new phone will be activated? Shall I be carrying 2 phones at once to make sure I have phone service?? Alright, so GSM phone service throughout time has been a matter of popping your sim card in and out of various different devices....am I missing something?? 48 hours?? Should I just take my sim card out of the 2G and put it in the 3Gs??
Totall confused.......:confused:

That is exactly what will happen. Either way, wether you switch the cards or not, the old card will die and the new one will activate. I think I got the email from AT&T just before it occurred, but either way, have them both on you if you want no downtime (and the sim card ejector...or a paperclip;)).

I switched the cards friday night after I couldn't wait any more, and the 3GS died some time saturday morning. Switched them back, and all was well.

[gwerhart0800]

My phone finally activated when I used this web page:

https://www.wireless.att.com/activations/

Then power cycled the phone 2-3 times with some 1-2 minute pauses when it was powered down.

Now, I have NO clue if this was the thing that finally did the trick. But, if you are still having problems getting activated then it is worth a shot.

[mwdbruno]

UPDATE:

After I got off work Sat, we went to a different ATT Corporate store. I had come up with an idea that might help...

The manager of the store, who was very helpful went through the same process that was tried, and then had a revelation...

In the previous attempts be the ATT reps to replace the SIM, they had registered the new SIM and then attempted to unblock the iPhone. He took a fresh, non registered SIM, and force activated it. It worked with about a 20min delay total...and I'm up and running!!!

Now that I have a full functioning iPhone I'm very impressed! What a cool, neat device! And compared to my previous Blackberry's the speed is amazing!

Thanks to all on the board who offered suggestions in my dilemma...and to the nay-sayers who were fortunate to not have any activation problems, a little persistance and brain storming with the ATT store manager is what it took to get the phone functional.

I'm sold! :apple:

[ncboater]

I tried to activate mine on Friday around 12 and now Sunday and still have no phone service. I also received an email from AT&T saying that I do not have an iphone data and will have data roaming and other charges ????? ..... which can't be I have the 2g iphone

I looked at my order and see an $18 activation fee .... I say we all need to ask for a refund of that. It happened last year but the same mistake twice is not acceptable.

[Jamie 360]

Have some patients guys ;)


It's really difficult to be patient as an existing Iphone user with a Sim card which you should just be able to pop in the new phone. Am I missing something about needing to activate a new sim card--is it different technology? Don't get me wrong, it could be worse-at least your current sim stays active while you await the new activation. At least they don't zap your old card once you start the process. THEN I'd be causing a scene at AT&T. I'm sure as hell not calling them, so will wait it out. Just hope its up and running for work Monday. :(

I can understand glitches for new accounts, but this is ridiculous. It should have been seamless. It arrived at 9:30 on release day, so maybe I should have ripped open the box and did it right away? I just thought I'd avoid the traffic.

[Jamie 360]

I tried to activate mine on Friday around 12 and now Sunday and still have no phone service. I also received an email from AT&T saying that I do not have an iphone data and will have data roaming and other charges ????? ..... which can't be I have the 2g iphone

I looked at my order and see an $18 activation fee .... I say we all need to ask for a refund of that. It happened last year but the same mistake twice is not acceptable.

But is the sim card in your 2G still working like mine is? My new one has been "awaiting activation" since midnight but I'm afraid to experiment since my 2g is still running. I don't want to lose all service.

[brendon2020]

my friend couldn't activate his all day but eventually it activated. Mine activated right away.

[casik]

Hmmm... sucks that AT&T were having so many issues. I ported a number from Rogers to Fido on the morning of the 19th. By the time the phone rep was done going over paperwork and I was done signing, the phone was active and the number was ported... My plan is awesome too for what I use the phone for (since I have skype)...

100 Daytime Min (per second billing)
Unlimited Texting
Unlimited Evenings after 7pm
500MB of data ( I spend almost all day in WiFi)
Caller ID
Visual Voicemail

All for $63 a month after tax!

[frankjt]

I received my 3GS on Friday via a pre-order from AT&T. I was stuck on the activation screen and no matter how many times I refreshed or unplugged it kept coming back with the message - Activation Delay this may some time.

Problem-solved. I went to the AT&T Store and the rep called a special phone number and my phone was instantly activated. Even though they have been telling me it was because of overwhelmed servers, this was not true.

If you can't activate go to the store and they can do it instantly.

[msalganik]

Me and my wife managed to snag a pair of new 32gb iPhones the morning they came out. We were on vacation in vt and so our new activation involved porting an Fl number and getting a new FL number from VT. Had no problem getting either done and we were all set within a half hour. Overall pleasantly surprised by AT&Ts service! (just moved from vzw because their bb offerings suck with our macs...and they are a bunch of lying, penny-pinching, overpriced bastards.)

[KinOfCain]

I had gotten my 3GS working/activated by swapping in the SIM from my old phone. I figured that when they finally got around to activating that it would stop working. Woke up this morning and sure enough it says "no signal", swapped back in the new SIM and it works fine.

So somewhere over 36 hours for me to get activated.

[KinOfCain]

Alright, here's my deal: I've been a 2G user since the first week of release. My 32gig 3Gs was delivered on release day. Thinking I was dodging the crowd, I plugged in to activate at 11:55 (Sat. night) and I got the 48 hour notice. Now here's where I'm confused: My 2G is still running, making phone calls, etc. Now am I to assume that all of a sudden, at the carrier's discretion, that my 2G will suddenly be "deactivated" and the new phone will be activated? Shall I be carrying 2 phones at once to make sure I have phone service?? Alright, so GSM phone service throughout time has been a matter of popping your sim card in and out of various different devices....am I missing something?? 48 hours?? Should I just take my sim card out of the 2G and put it in the 3Gs??
Totall confused.......:confused:

Yes on both counts. Swap your sims to get your new 3GS activated, and carry around your "new" sim for when the old one stops working. Your old sim will stop working when they get around to activating the new one.

[shaytmg]

I think I am noticing a pattern here (sorry if someone already pointed this out).

My iPhone activated in about one minute and I am a new iPhone user. My brother in law experienced the delays and he was upgrading from an old iphone.

Is this what people are seeing?

We should take a poll, whoever experienced delays, were you a new iphone user or upgrading from an old version of the iPhone?

[TLewis]

So somewhere over 36 hours for me to get activated.
Well, for those of you who waited, there's a rumor that you might get lucky:

http://www.everythingicafe.com/news/iphone/apple-offering-$30-itunes-store-credits,-apologize-for-activation-issues-200906211389/

I didn't wait, and just called AT&T to activate, and so I'm probably not eligible. :rolleyes:

[jpintobks]

I got by Fedex my 3GS at noon on Friday 19th and took literally 2 minutes to activate. It was replacing a 3G. Passing the Apps took 5 + minutes.

The phone has all my contacts, email and all information. It works great.

Bravo Apple.

[travistaylor]

I got my phone just now and tried to activate it. No dice. I got the message that it could be up to 48 hours for my new iPhone 3G S to activate. My question is, will I be able to receive the $30.00 credit? I didn't get any email from Apple or AT&T after I attempted the activation. My old iPhone still works, but I can't use EDGE for data because it keeps telling me that I don't have a Data Plan...strange!

Is this No Data Plan thing normal? What about emails, should I be receiving an email soon from Apple or AT&T about the lack of activation?

Thanks!

[shemp9999]

I got my phone just now and tried to activate it. No dice. I got the message that it could be up to 48 hours for my new iPhone 3G S to activate. My question is, will I be able to receive the $30.00 credit? I didn't get any email from Apple or AT&T after I attempted the activation.

I waited the two days and got activated this afternoon. I could tell because the old SIM stopped working. The account is in my girlfriend's name, and she just got back to town and mentioned lots of 'sorry you're screwed' emails she got in my name. Maybe one of them offered me some free tunes - I'll have to ask nice.:rolleyes:

My old iPhone still works, but I can't use EDGE for data because it keeps telling me that I don't have a Data Plan...strange!

Is this No Data Plan thing normal?

That's odd. I set up the new plan when I ordered the phone. I used my old SIM in the new phone all weekend and got 3G, et al.

[giantsquid]

Hey all, just wanted to share my story with you, hopefully this works for you too.

After dealing with incompetent AT&T reps, I tried online activation through AT&T's website. After confirming my SIM card number, I powered down BOTH phones. I then restarted the NEW phone 1st and it was activated. THIS after waiting all weekend for activation to kick in.

Hope this helps.

[iPhoneNYC]

So have there been any firm reports on how many 3Gs were sold over the weekend?

[megfilmworks]

Over a million. Best smart phone model debut yet:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-iphone23-2009jun23,0,7861921.story

[i-John]

Oh, AT&T. Another nail in the coffin we're preparing for your use on the day your exclusive deal with Apple expires.
Even though it's to do with Apple's network? How can activation issues outside of the US be AT&T's fault?

It was the same thing last year. The issues were on Apple's servers not being ready, not at&t. It's funny how it's Apple that are issuing the gift cards. Your head is firmly planted in the sand when it comes to Apple. They screwed up for months with MobileMe, and last year with activation... now this.

How come all other phones have no issues activating? They go through the same AT&T system. I'm sure if anyone who bought phones other than the iPhone during the "48 hours" that people were having issues didn't have any problems. The only thing that's different is that it's not going through Apple's system.

[Jamie 360]

How come all other phones have no issues activating? They go through the same AT&T system. I'm sure if anyone who bought phones other than the iPhone during the "48 hours" that people were having issues didn't have any problems. The only thing that's different is that it's not going through Apple's system.

I have to agree. When my new sim was finally activated, I was getting a message saying "you are not subscibed to a data plan." I was able to add it thru the AT&T website and it began working instantly. Also explains why so many people were able to activate it themselves on the AT&T page. It seems to me like the information from Apple was not entirely delivered to AT&T. Besides--if it were truely AT&T's fault, don't you think they would just waive the $18 activation fee? Instead you get to contribute to Apple's next announcement of their record number of Itunes downloads--slick! (although, haven't heard about anyone getting that) Maybe Apple & AT&T have a better relationship than we think.