1m iPhone 3Gs sold, 10 million apps and millions of frustrated customers

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 14 July 2008 22:29

Your IT - Mobility

So, the iPhone 3G sold 1 million units by Sunday US time after launching in 21 countries, and 10 million apps via the App Store, but iTunes activation, MobileMe and firmware update snafus left millions of customers fuming, too.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of the iPhone 3G and the iPhone OS 2.0, it was the age of iFanboyism, it was the epoch of belief in the Reality Distortion Field, it was the epoch of iNcredulity, it was the season of Steve, it was the season of Jobs, it was the spring of iMania, it was the winter of Windows Mobile, we had iEverything before us, we had iNothing before us, we were all going direct to iPheaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the last time the iPhone launched, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of iComparison only.

You see, several amazing things had happened all at once, thus turning Apple CEO Steve Jobs into saviour and saint while seeing his halo slip - all at once.

Thus was the iPhone 3G born, in a swirling sea of rabid hysteria over the famed second coming of the Jesus Phone at last. Free at last, free at last to be purchased by the hoards of the deprived for whom grey imported unlocked iPhones were their only previous salvation.

For as the iPhone 3G was unleashed unto an impatient world, so was the iPhone and iPod Touch OS 2.0 software, the .Mac to Mobile Me transition and the need for hundreds of thousands of shiny new iPhone 3Gs to be activated, seemingly all at once.

Dubbed by Gizmodo as the iPocalypse and others as the iFiasco, the torrential storm took some time to pass, but pass it eventually did, and Steve Jobs looked down upon the world and saw that it was good. The millions who had previously been thwarted by Apple’s groaning infrastructure had received Jobs’ blessing at last.

And as the clouds parted and the sunlight came streaming thru, lo! By Sunday, more than 1 million iPhone 3Gs had been sold in 21 countries, with the French forced to wait until July 17 to become the 22nd country to officially receive the Jobsian Papal dispensation of the iPhone 3G.

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