iPhone 4S Launch to Double AT&T's Record for Activations in One Day

att1Following Sprint's announcement of record sales, AT&T also announced a very busy sales day. AT&T didn't break out sales totals for the iPhone, but reports it is seeing record activations.

As of 4:30 pm ET today, AT&T had already activated a record number of iPhones on our network – and is on-track to double our previous record for activations on a single day. These record volumes may produce slower activations for some customers, though our systems continue to run at record levels.

AT&T was Apple's launch partner in 2007, and the exclusive partner until Apple launched the Verizon iPhone earlier this year.

AT&T hit this record despite their activation servers having difficulties handling the unprecedented demand. iPhone 4S owners reportedly had difficulties with activations on multiple carriers, and not just AT&T.

Popular Stories

cook trump

Trump Responds to Apple Keeping Diversity Policies

Wednesday February 26, 2025 6:32 am PST by
In an all-caps post on Truth Social today, U.S. President Donald Trump said Apple should fully end its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies. Tim Cook meeting with President Trump in 2017 "APPLE SHOULD GET RID OF DEI RULES, NOT JUST MAKE ADJUSTMENTS TO THEM," he wrote. Trump's post comes one day after Apple held its annual shareholders meeting, during which a majority of...
iOS 18

Apple Says iOS 18.4 Will Be Released in April With These New Features

Wednesday February 26, 2025 7:15 am PST by
In a recent press release, Apple confirmed that iOS 18.4 will be released in April. From the Apple News+ Food announcement:Coming with iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 in April, Apple News+ subscribers will have access to Apple News+ Food, a new section that will feature tens of thousands of recipes — as well as stories about restaurants, healthy eating, kitchen essentials, and more — from the...
apple watch ultra snow

6 Features Coming to the Apple Watch Ultra 3

Tuesday February 25, 2025 9:00 am PST by
The Apple Watch Ultra 3 is expected to launch later this year, arriving two years after the previous model with a series of improvements. While no noticeable design changes are expected for the third generation since the company tends to stick with the same Apple Watch design through three generations before changing it, there are a series of internal upgrades on the way. By the time the ...
iPhone Fold Vertical Feature

Apple's 2026 Foldable iPhone Has No Visible Display Crease – Report

Tuesday February 25, 2025 2:58 am PST by
Apple is making significant headway on its long-rumored foldable iPhone, with a new report suggesting the company has achieved a major breakthrough by effectively eliminating the screen crease that plagues current foldable devices. According to Korean publication ETNews, Apple is finalizing its component suppliers for the foldable iPhone, with the selection process expected to be completed...
trump iphone dictation issue

Apple Fixing 'Trump' Dictation Processing Bug

Tuesday February 25, 2025 1:18 pm PST by
Multiple iPhone owners today noticed a pronunciation processing issue that causes the word "Trump" to momentarily show up when using dictation to send a message with the word "racist." In some cases, when speaking the word racist through the iPhone's built-in dictation feature, the iPhone briefly interprets the spoken word as "Trump" and "Trump" text shows up in the Messages app before being ...
airpods pro purple

Here's When AirPods Pro 3 Are Rumored to Launch

Monday February 24, 2025 9:14 am PST by
According to a post on X today from a leaker known as Kosutami, Apple plans to launch AirPods Pro 3 in May or June this year. The leaker also claimed that an AirTag 2 will launch around the same time. Kosutami is best known as a collector of prototype Apple hardware, but they have occasionally shared accurate information about Apple's future product plans. For example, they accurately...
airtag orange

AirTag 2 Rumored to Launch in May or June With These New Features

Monday February 24, 2025 6:11 am PST by
Apple plans to launch a second-generation AirTag in May or June this year, according to a post today from a leaker known as Kosutami. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman previously reported that a new AirTag would be released in mid-2025. May or June would align with that timeframe. Below, we recap three new features rumored for the AirTag 2: With a second-generation Ultra Wideband chip, the...
ios 18 4 carplay

iOS 18.4 Includes a Small But Useful Change for CarPlay

Sunday February 23, 2025 2:23 pm PST by
The first beta of iOS 18.4 is now available, and it includes a small but useful change for CarPlay. As we noted in our list of iOS 18.4 features, CarPlay now shows a third row of icons, up from two rows previously. However, this change is only visible in vehicles with a larger center display. For example, a MacRumors Forums member noticed the change in a Toyota Tundra, which can be equipped...

Top Rated Comments

mrsir2009 Avatar
175 months ago
...And people said the iPhone 4S was a flop...
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
PeterQVenkman Avatar
175 months ago
But wait, according to these forums, the iPhone 4s was a huge fail? Imagine that. It's successful as hell on every carrier.

Hmmm.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
gorgeousninja Avatar
175 months ago
OPEN LETTER TO PHIL SCHILLER:

Apple is no longer a toy company with ten customers. It's a major player. People depend on the products and services provided by Apple and pay very goo money for them. Stop with the same day mega-launches which cause everything to crash. Order on Friday, get it on Friday. Order on Monday, get it on Monday. Get it. That stretches the buzz without causing everything to fail.
Open letter to you. You are not one of only ten customers now, you are one among millions. No matter how much care and preparation is taken, the overwhelming popularity of the products continues to swamp the servers. Either dont buy on launch day or realize that this is how it will be and relax.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Routerninja Avatar
175 months ago
Same here. SO FRUSTRATED! Calling corporate for a credit to my account. It's BS. :mad:

Do you call the department of transportation and demand money when the roads are congested too? Yay for our overdeveloped sense of entitlement!
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Zincous Avatar
175 months ago
It's not like the phone doesn't work in the meantime for all its other functions.

The 4s can't do anything else until it's activated.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
inkswamp Avatar
175 months ago
Given that there are two other carriers to choose from, and given four solid years of complaints from iPhone user's about AT&T's service, why the hell are people still choosing AT&T?

I understand that there are a relatively small amount of people out there who only get AT&T service at their home and/or workplace, and I understand if those kind of people choose AT&T. But it seems that the majority of people buying the iPhone 4S with AT&T are not those kind of people. Could someone please explain why?
Because all the whining you hear around the Internet about AT&T's service being vastly inferior to that of Verizon is coming from a very vocal minority in large cities (SF and NY, to name a couple) where that happens to be the case. Nobody is going out to the countless smaller cities, like where I live about 80 miles north of Seattle, where AT&T's service is impeccable and blows the competition out of the water (in 3 years, I can count on one hand the number of dropped calls I've had with my iPhone3G... no joke.) I suspect that's the case in lots of other places too but reporting on reliable service in a city of 200K isn't an interesting story so the tech press skews in favor of all the bellyaching in more densely populated locations.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)