The past two days were supposed to be one of the biggest launches in Apple history in terms of the number of big products being released. Unfortunately the launch has been anything but smooth.
Four different products were scheduled to be launched in the past 2 days: MobileMe, App Store, 3G iPhone, and an update to iPod Touch software. Three of those four products have had noticeable setbacks.
MobileMe
Apple’s replacement for their .Mac service, MobileMe, was set to launch yesterday. Not only did the launch not go smoothly yesterday, it’s still not going today. 36 hours later, Apple has the following message up:
The MobileMe transition is underway but is taking longer than expected. While core services such as desktop mail, iDisk and sync are available, the new MobileMe web applications are not yet online. Thank you for your patience as we complete the upgrade.
All of the services that previous .Mac users had have been unavailable for the majority of the past 36 hours or so.
iPod Touch Update
The new software for the iPod Touch is still on target for being released today, but the update process has been subpar to say the least. Users (myself included) see there is an update for their iPod in iTunes but when they proceed with the upgrade process an error message is displayed saying the iTunes store link can’t be accessed. I personally have had iTunes switch back and forth about a dozen times between saying there is and there isn’t an update for my iPod Touch.
Apparently server issues are to blame for this.
3G iPhone
The same server issues that are plaguing the iPod Touch upgrade also seem to be causing issues with some 3G iPhone activations. According to Macrumors, some Apple stores are just sending people home to activate their new iPhones because of the issues.
Now, let’s put somethings in perspective here. I would say of these three issues, the MobileMe one is really the only massive fail. The iPod Touch and 3G iPhone issues are more of a nasty inconvenience than anything (and we’re still only a few hours in to their launches).
To me it just feels like Apple bit off a bit more than they could chew and the consequence of that is their usual seamless user experience is getting hit hard.
Have any of these issues affected you? What has your experience been with these updates in the past couple of days?
Apple disappointed me, with all of these flaws, especially MobileMe. I can only hope nothing ever happens like this again.
Hey Ryan,
Thanks for the comment! I agree, the MobileMe launch was a debacle, but I can’t say it wasn’t completely unexpected. I always thought that it would be difficult to create a new space for people, then transition existing customers. Not to mention the controversy over the work “push”.
But I will say, I only had to wait a week for my back-ordered iPhone 3G to come in which was a pleasant surprise. Given current demand, I would have considered myself lucky to get one in 2 weeks!