Apple iPhone 3G – launch aftermath

For those of you that followed IntoMobile’s live streaming coverage of the iPhone 3G launch event from beautiful Santa Monica, California’s Third Street Promenade Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) Store will already know that the launch-day madness was almost as frenzied as last year’s media-blitzed festivities. But, with Apple and AT&T (NYSE: T) insisting on having their next-generation iPhone 3G activated in-store, the process, from start to finish, of buying an iPhone 3G was a considerably more drawn-out proposition.

That being said. I finally have an iPhone 3G in my hand. Having spent 18 or so hours on the boardwalk of one of Santa Monica’s premier shopping attractions, chatting it up with like-minded iPhone 3G fans, playing games (Monopoly), and waiting patiently for Apple to open the doors to the new smartphone hotness that is the iPhone 3G, I can definitely say that it was all worth it.

You would think that, after last year’s iPhone-activation snafus, AT&T and Apple would have increased capacity and made preparations to handle the flood of iPhone fans looking to activate their device and start playing on AT&T’s 3G network post haste. But, no.

While AT&T and Apple made easy work of registering the handset on a new AT&T contract, most iPhone 3G users were told to go home and activate the handset through iTunes at their leisure. What we took away from the experience was that Apple and AT&T were too bogged down with activation requests through their iTunes accounts and couldn’t get customers’ iPhone 3Gs activated fast enough. Still, AT&T and Apple did a good job in making sure that all new iPhone 3G sales were linked to new contracts – the unlocked iPhone 3G secondary market will be hurting for sure.

There are scattered reports of iPhone 3G users still having activation problems or delays today. And, a quick trip down to the local Apple and AT&T stores reveals that people are still waiting 3 hours, or more, to get their hands on an iPhone 3G. The wait-time apparently hasn’t deterred too many iPhone 3G fans from spending a beautiful Saturday afternoon waiting in line for Apple’s next-generation handset.

I’m off to play with MobileMe and explore the AppStore to it’s fullest. Expect to hear more about the iPhone 3G in the next few days.