iPhone or iCan't: Has Apple Gone Sour?

Apple boasts selling 1 million iPhones, even after Friday's activation problems.

ByABC News
July 14, 2008, 11:21 AM

July 14, 2008 — -- Has Apple finally gone sour?

Some frustrated Apple customers, either turned away from stores after waiting in line for hours or left with malfunctioning next-generation iPhones after spending hundreds on the device, are saying "yes."

An inadequate supply of iPhones at many AT&T locations, combined with a glitch in iTunes that prevented customers from activating their phones, caused chaos over the weekend. That's when Apple enthusiasts who flocked to purchase the new gadgets instead found the notoriously well-run Apple operation unravel before their eyes.

Laura LaLone of La Porte, Ind., told ABCNews.com that she drove 90 minutes with her anxious 14-year-old son only to stand in line for another three hours and leave empty-handed.

LaLone said that she was told AT&T – the sole provider for the iPhone – was not available in her zip code.

"We [know that's] not the case," LaLone wrote in an e-mail to ABCNews.com. "We have many friends who have AT&T cell phones."

"Apple's solution to this delay and trouble was to have the employees go around and pass out bottles of water!" said LaLone. "They made no attempt at communicating their troubles with customers and tried their best to hide it."

Californian Paul Summers camped out overnight at his local Trabuco Canyon, Calif., AT&T store to make sure he and his wife got new iPhones as soon as they were released.

And while Summers and his wife did walk away with new phones, they were no more useful than a pair of paper weights.

"[We were] not able to activate the phone in the store," Summers in an e-mail to ABCNews.com. "[The AT&T employees] told us to activate them at home, and when we tried that our phones were bricks."

But amid the horror stories were also those of success: Many new iPhone users – even some who were tied up in the chaos Friday and Saturday – still say the wait was well worth it.

Having spent six hours in line at a Dallas Apple store, Joseph Kasales Jr. told ABCNews.com that he too ran into activation problems, but is now happy with his new purchase.