E-commerce pages stumble as thousands rush to register.
Major deficiencies in the online sales operations of AT&T and Apple have been showing up as people rush to register for the iPhone 4.
Both web sites struggled to cope as thousands of eager buyers rushed to register for the new handsets, leaving potential buyers frustrated. Many visitors to the sites have been advised to try again later.
A notice on the AT&T site said: "We're sorry, but we are experiencing a system error that prevents us from completing your request."
Frustrated users have been queuing outside Apple stores trying to register for the handsets, but many have been told to wait until the web sites are up again.
"After 10 attempts I have given up," said one irate user on a local San Francisco message board. "I can just imagine Steve [Jobs] jumping [up] and down on the phone with Apple's e-commerce support."
Some users reported being charged multiple times for a single order, or spending hours trying to log in and register their details.
These problems are exactly the kind that cloud vendors like to cite as reasons for scalable, on-demand computing power.
Apple and AT&T did not respond to questions from V3.co.uk on the nature of the web site issues.
