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July 11, 2008 11:52 AM PDT

Buzz Out Loud 764: iPhail?

by Tom Merritt

On the first day of the iPhone 3G massive amounts of fanatics went home frustrated. Activation problems meant a lot of folks couldn't go home with a working iPhone. Some didn't even have a working phone at all, as the old phone got deactivated but the new one was not brought into working order. Meanwhile FCC goes Medieval on Comcast and announces the four freedoms of the Internet will be enforced.
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EPISODE 764

iPhone 3G goes on sale
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-iphone-3g-goes-on-sale-plagued-by-activation-problems/
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080711-launch-woes-turn-iphone-parousia-into-activation-apocalypse.html
http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/11/itunes-activation-servers-go-down-iphone-3g-customers-being-sen/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-9988836-93.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-9988807-1.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-9988728-16.html

.Mac migration to MobileMe hits some roadblocks
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-9987736-92.html

iPhone 2.0: What’s Good (and free!) in the iTunes App Store
http://lifehacker.com/398275/whats-good-and-free-in-the-itunes-app-store
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-9987795-2.html

Jailbreak! Living in sweet harmony!
http://blog.iphone-dev.org/post/41730121/living-in-sweet-harmony
http://wikee.iphwn.org/

Comcast faces FCC sanctions for blocking Web traffic
http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/news/2008/07/portfolio_0711
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080711-comcast-loses-fcc-head-slams-companys-p2p-filtering.html

Open Wi-Fi network viable defense against infringement charge--at least in Germany
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080710-open-wifi-network-viable-defense-against-infringement-chargeat-least-in-germany.html

Researchers craft bot to populate Wikipedia with gene data
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080710-researchers-craft-bot-to-populate-wikipedia-with-gene-data.html

Microsoft to finally end OEM licensing for Windows 3.11
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/10/186236

Free games as a solution to game piracy
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/10/1651248

VOICE MAIL

Scotland
iPhone activation problems

Vonage
Here's why it's bad for them to work together.

Anonymous
Date advice.

E-MAIL

Heya buzz people :)

I have a Hilarious story, T-mobile (the provider in the Netherlands) is having some problems, all those people standing in line waiting for the iPhone all happy. But then OH NO, the T-Mobile activation servers went down with in 3 min. so people can’t take there phone home, they will get called when activating is done. second problem, T-Mobile shop employees blame IT (who doesn’t?) because they need iTunes to activate the phones, yet they can’t install iTunes on company machines.. yeah right, that’s why 500 people got the iPhone?. those 500 got sold in Rotterdam last night at 3 PDT. so Anyway, I’m not getting a phone.

(You wanna donate me one). But every store has about 12 phones, some only 6 and are split in to third segments, so 1/3 is 8gb 1/3 16GB white and 1/3 is 16GB black. Really a launch gone all wrong.

Tales from the Netherlands

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Add a Comment (Log in or register) (8 Comments)
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by burndive July 11, 2008 1:09 PM PDT
The perfect example of the excessive behavior of others subsidizing my use of a service:

Text messaging.

It's pure profit for the wireless companies. Everyone pays ridiculous prices for it, except me, because I avoid it like the plague.
Reply to this comment
by Stariun July 11, 2008 5:09 PM PDT
Actually O2 was using iTunes to activate instore in UK and not IE (IE is not what is used to activate an iphone).
The problem I think was with the servers being hammered.
Had to wait longer at Cardiff O2 shop.
Reply to this comment
by techdribble July 11, 2008 5:20 PM PDT
Still cant get the 2.0 firmware update for the Touch here in Oz. Apples servers must be old Newtons.
Reply to this comment
by fargiemargie13 July 12, 2008 8:23 AM PDT
http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2008/07/11/iphone-first-day.html?ref=rss

This link talks about the fact that the biggest Rogers store in Canada got only 100 iPhones. What a joke!
Reply to this comment
by bleech July 12, 2008 1:54 PM PDT
There is something very interesting Veronica talked about, the fake ad stuff in GTA and the ability to capitalize it.

Actually, there is a brand [namely EA Games] which is quite well known: NFS or Need for Speed which has embedded advertising EVERYWHERE. From "most wanted", where every single communication was sponsored by Cingular. Burger king everywhere, and specific in-game car advertisement. Carbon, the next chapter, had even more sponsorship and advertisement. And the last one, Pro, well, you can see at Gamespot how much advertisement there is.

Eventually, it has become a hindrance and a pain in the a**. The biggest flaw in the entire game is the tantalizing amount of ad there is embedded.

Funnily enough, those games, even they are heavily based in net gaming, are not for free.
Reply to this comment
by wizkids32 July 12, 2008 2:25 PM PDT
OK why in the heck did they want to have the people to activate the phone in the store when the new iPhone 2.0 is all ready jailbroken they should have done it with what they did with the first phone congrats to apple and AT&T seen they had there messed up giving every one the cell phones preventing unlocked phones and 2.0 is all ready jailbroken and they really messed up.
Reply to this comment
by glistam108 July 12, 2008 4:22 PM PDT
Sums up my sentiments quite nicely, courtesy of The Soup:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDZUk67FpB0
Reply to this comment
by glistam108 July 12, 2008 4:22 PM PDT
Sums up my sentiments quite nicely, courtesy of The Soup:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDZUk67FpB0
Reply to this comment
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Buzz Out Loud features Tom Merritt, producer Jason Howell, and a rotating roundtable of CNET's top tech experts reviewing the day's tech news. Each episode, five times a week, the crew analyzes, interprets, and argues about what all this technology means and what it's doing to us. Fans can join in the show by calling 1-800-616-CNET (2638), e-mailing at buzz@cnet.com, or commenting on the blog.


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