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iPhone fallout: activation delays and questionable battery performance

Typical stuff for a launch like this.

We're not linking to any one source because it's the same stories coming in four ways from Sunday. AT&T activation service wasn't designed to take on that many activations at once (big surprise). By Sunday things seemed to be back to normal, but that doesn't excuse AT&T for not having their act together. Also it seems that AT&T boosted the speed on their EDGE network (used for web-surfing on the iPhone), which is nice to hear unless you're a longtime, loyal AT&T (nee Cingular) customer who has been riding the slower version until now. Don't worry, AT&T will be treating the iPhonenicians just as poorly in about 3 to 6 months.

I came across one report about the battery life being subpar. I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of these reports and it's not too surprising, for several reasons. One, all battery life is disappointing. Two, no company's claims on battery life are close to real life use (but Apple is particularly bad at this). Three, since the iPhone battery can't be replaced by the user (just like the iPod), people are going to be extra sensitive about its performance, as well they should be.

One more thing to remember, this was a humongous shipment of iPhones. There are going to be plenty of lemons in the batch. If you think your iPhone isn't behaving properly, walk it in back to the store and get a different one. Don't bother trying to figure it out. That's not what you paid for.