Traffic Brings iPhone 4S Activations, iOS 5 Downloads to Standstill

With the launch of iOS 5 on Wednesday and the iPhone 4S today, excited iOS users have queued up to make the transition to Apple's latest and greatest. Unfortunately for many, the transition hasn't been as smooth as they'd hoped.

A number of early adopters who tried to upgrade to iOS 5 late Wednesday and Thursday experienced errors due to a massive influx of traffic on Apple's servers. And this morning, Verizon and AT&T's activation servers appear to be having a similar issue. Luckily, repeated attempts, or just waiting a while until server loads go down, fixes the issue for most upgraders.

Many users who tried to update on Wednesday afternoon got "Error 3200" or "Internal Service" errors because their devices weren't able to make a connection to Apple's servers. The issue became widespread as iOS users across the globe decided it was time to update, and Apple's servers couldn't keep up with the crushing volume of traffic.

At least one iPhone user who attempted the iOS 5 upgrade ended up bricking his phone after getting the Error 3200 message.

Twitter searches for Error 3200 or AT&T activation reveal complaints from quite a few iOS users, and there are additional reports of Verizon having server problems Friday morning. "Error 3200" became a worldwide trending topic on Twitter by Wednesday evening.

On AT&T, the error message reads: “Your activation is still pending. You will receive an email notification once your activation is complete.” Below that it reads, “We're sorry. There was a problem connecting to the server. Please try again later.” Some suffering from this issue have already deactivated their previous iPhones (including our own editor, Jon Phillips). These folks are now left without any cell service until server loads die down.

If you want to avoid such issues, it may be best to hold off a few days or weeks to make the jump. Although Apple has an extremely robust beta program — iOS 5 has been available to developers since May — there is also still a possibility of system bugs, which would inevitably be ironed out within the next few weeks. To wit: When the iPhone 4 and iOS 4 launched last summer, Apple issued the iOS 4.1 update that fixed problems like sluggish performance on the 3GS and proximity-sensor issues.

Another thing to consider: If you've jailbroken your device, when you upgrade to iOS 5 you will lose your jailbreak (there is a tethered jailbreak already available, though). Regardless, with iOS 5, you may not even feel the need to jailbreak, as some traditional jailbreak-only features — like having the camera button on the lock screen and better notifications — are now built-in.

Have you been experiencing iOS 5 download or iPhone 4S activation-related issues? Share your experiences in the comments.

Image: Brian X. Chen/Wired.com