What We Know About the AT&T OutageAfter thousands of AT&T users were unable to make calls or send texts on Thursday morning, service was fully restored by the afternoon.
Is the iPhone a Failure? Maybe!So is the iPhone a flop? Today’s New York Sun, among other papers, reports that, in the first 30 hours of the iPhone’s availability, a mere 146,000 were activated, according to AT&T, its exclusive service provider. Though 146,000 activations in 30 hours might strike any of us as a big number — that’s 80 each minute, after all — it pales in comparison to the 500,000 units analysts were estimating would sell in the first two days the thing was available. (Here’s an especially rah-rah CNN item from July 2, the three days after the iPhone went on sale, tossing out that half-million number.) Plus, it gets worse: A CIBC World Markets report out yesterday shows that demand has only cooled since that first, underwhelming burst. That news drove Apple stock down 6 percent yesterday, and AT&T took a hit as well. By this measure, the Sun says, the rollout has been a crushing failure.
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Countdown to iPhone: Reach Out and Touch an AT&T Store
Sure, people have been camped out for days in front of the Apple Stores. But they’ll be selling iPhones at AT&T stores, too, and — according to a spot check just performed by New York’s intrepid interns — Ma Bell is the place to be. At noon today there were 197 people on line in front of the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue and 59th Street; a dozen blocks south at the AT&T store at Fifth and 47th, eight people were waiting. After the jump, line lengths at six Manhattan iPhone locations, along with whatever other information we could glean.
