I was the 8th person standing in the Birmingham queue Friday 11th July. We entered the store at 8.02 am and thereafter things just went from bad to worse. I finally left the store just before 6.00 pm with my iPhone. (At 4.00 pm - the UK's second city Apple Store - had managed to sell grand total of 5! Yes, folks - FIVE! Mighty impressive statistics.
How could O2 and Apple get the registration and activation process so wrong? There was no realistic contingency/fallback plan but plenty of red faces, apologies and platitudes.
Even today (Sat 11.44 am) there is no 02 signal showing on the handset - O2's website and their telephone help desk inform me I may have to wait another 3 days! So on present performance, let's call that 7 days shall we ....