<RANT>
Looks like the activation servers for iTunes are seriously swamped with requests. Looks like their capacity planning folks failed in their job and didn’t anticipate the demands for a world wide roll-out of a new iPhone and a firmware upgrade of older iPhones and IPod Touch devices. Well, it’s not like they had MONTHS to prepare for it.
</RANT>
So when I plugged my phone this morning, iTunes popped up and told me that the v2.0 was ready and if I’d like to install it. uhm… Hell yes! iTunes downloaded the new firmware, backed up my phone, placed the new firmware on the phone and restarted the phone. Once the phone is back online, it was to go back to iTunes and ‘re-activate’ (I guess). Since the servers are swamped, I get an unknown iTunes Store error of -9838.
The phone can now only be used for emergency phone calls. Which is very disappointing – but I’m also a little relieve to see that the Apple had the ability to put that functionality into the phone without the phone being activated.
Anyway – don’t call me… at least for a few hours. Hopefully Apple will fix their issues and I’ll be in v2.0 Heaven soon.
-JT
3 replies on “Apple "Bricked" my iPhone”
Same thing happened to me. Sitting at the unactivated screen. It wouldn’t be so bad, if I didn’t use this phone for work. Now I can’t even do my job. Thanks Apple. If anyone comes out with a fix, don’t hesitate to let me know.
I feel your pain! I’ve been plugging and unplugging my phone in for hours now. The good news is that I’m getting a different unknown error – error # -4. Maybe if it reaches 0, it’ll work? ha!
Going back to unplugging and plugging my phone in.
WooHoo! Finally got it! Only six hours of trying. iTunes is currently copying all my data back.