Upgrade woes for iPhone customers

O2's online shop was temporarily unavailable yesterday, leaving many people unable to pre-order the 3G version of the iPhone.

The company blamed high levels of demand for the website after it sent out text messages yesterday morning to those who had pre-registered their interest in getting their hands on the new phone.

However, visitors were unable to get into O2's online store to register.

Those who were able to log on and go through the registration process were often met with a message reading: "There has been a problem with taking your order. We apologise for the inconvenience. Please try again."

A spokeswoman for 02 said: "Due to extremely high levels of demand, the O2 online shop was temporarily unavailable this morning. We are working to restore the service back to full speed as quickly as possible."

"We made a limited allocation of iPhone 3G stock available for pre-order online, primarily for those customers that pre-registered their interest. Demand has been very high and we have now sold out of this allocation for the 16GB version, although we still have some available through our upgrade store," the spokeswoman continued.

The iPhone 3G goes on sale next Monday 11 July, at 0802BST.

"Customers can be reassured that there will be iPhones available in store from 8.02am on the 11 July, although we again expect demand to be very high. All iPhone stock is being sold on a first come, first served basis," O2's spokeswoman said.

Have you had trouble pre-ordering the iPhone 3G? Have your say in the Web User forums.

www.o2.co.uk/iphone
www.apple.com/uk/iphone