Scattered reports of iPhone OS 3.0 update problems

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Updated at 12:15 p.m. PDT

While the majority of commenters on CNET and around the Web are reporting success in downloading iPhone OS 3.0 Wednesday, there were scattered reports of problems.

My colleague Stephen Shankland, a CNET News reporter, tried several times to download the OS update around 12 p.m. Pacific to his iPhone and received the same error message, pictured above, each time.

A handful of CNET commenters reported problems accessing iTunes. "I see that the upgrade is now available, but four times the message I get after a couple of minutes is that the download has 'timed out,'" said one reader, and another reported, "Same issue here, cannot connect to the iTunes store to activate so the phone won't work."

A quick perusal of Twitter showed a smattering of people with the same issue.

This, of course, is a repeat of what happened last year, when Apple's iTunes servers couldn't withstand the barrage of traffic when customers tried to update to iPhone 2.0 software at the same time new iPhone 3G buyers were attempting to activate their phones.

Anyone else having problems with the update today?

Update 12:45 p.m. PDT: Reader Michael Samstag wrote in to say his iPhone was rendered unusable when he tried to install the update. "It has the 'connect to iTunes' message and will only allow emergency calls," he says. "I signed up for the 'Apple callback' for tech support and they called back and put me on hold for 20-minutes. Then the call got disconnected and now the earliest callback time is between 6:15 p.m. EDT and 6:30 p.m. EDT. So, I'm looking at having no cell for a minimum of three hours, probably longer."

Gizmodo is also hearing reports of phones "bricked" from the update. We're still waiting for comment from Apple.

Update 1:05 p.m. PDT: We're also getting feedback about general sluggishness and intermittent problems accessing Apple's Mobile Me service. But it sounds like the situation isn't as bad as last year. That was when the simultaneous launch of the iPhone 3G and Mobile Me wreaked havoc on across Apple's servers and related Web services.

Update 2:26 p.m. PDT: My colleague Stephen now reports success in installing the update--after 30 tries over the course of 2.5 hours. Samstag, the reader who earlier reported his phone had been bricked by the update, also says it's working now.

Seems like things are getting back to normal now.