Activate your iPhone from home

I got my O2 Pay & Go iPhone 3G from the store unopened and was able to activate it at home.

Here in Canada, in addition to Rogers, Fido (Rogers' discount brand) also allowed in-home activation of my iPhone 3G.

Just pulled the SIM card out of my Razr, popped it in the new iPhone and plugged it into my Win XP SP3 box running a current iTunes.

not exactly what the fuss is here. i'm in London UK and i lined up for 3G model on launch day, and along with every other person who'd bought went home with it unopened unactivated. we were supposed to have it activated instore, but the network's general servers (nothing to do with iTunes or Apple) went down because of the volume of access it was trying to cope with. i just plugged it into iTunes at home and was fine. if it was 'actually required' to activate instore via a particular method we wouldn't of been able to do this. they're just leading you all on.

I got my iPhone 3G in Italy at a Vodafone store. I did not have to get a plan or activate my iPhone. I got home and activated it on iTunes, after that I have been able to put any SIM card into my phone and it works. I wonder if this is just a European thing.

I hope when I go to the States I can also put any SIM in.

...This sounds like a hoax or something untrue nonetheless to me. I was able to get my (original non 3G) iPhone at an Apple store, take it home, and use iTunes to activate it. I don't see why they're making you freakin' get it "preactivated" when they've offered to allow you to do it so you can do it in the privacy of your own home.

I'm calling bullshit.

@Jeff

I know a couple of Apple Stores where the service would be just as bad.

How many times does it have to be said. Apple products = Apple store.

We'll assume your geography prevented that as an option.

Now that you can purchase online, there is 0 reason to ever go into an AT&T store, thankfully.

What does the "that's no moon" quote mean under the graphic?

Wish mine had been that smooth. I was first in line at an AT&T store for the first gen launch. Walked out of the store at 6:14 Friday afternoon ready to go home and activate. Activation wouldn't go through until Sunday evening. The Apple forums were filled with people having the same issues. I've never seen it reported though. If in-store activations work better than at home ones, I say just do it in the store.

Just an FYI, they've been doing this in Canada since the release of iPhone 3G since wait times at Rogers have been crazy (their retail stores suck).

I as well as family members activated our phones this way. Just set everything up in-store or over the phone first, so its all on your account, pop in your sim, plug it into iTunes, and it says iPhone activated, pretty much it.