Like many iPhone owners, I have looked forward to today with a lot of anticipation. I resisted the hype for a bit. I soon realized, however, that if I was rationalizing the purchase of a new iPhone under the thinly veiled guise of “one who studies technology and culture”, then who was I to deny myself of the full first day release experience?

I decided to go half way. I do, after all, have a job. I figured I would go after work, around dinner, and catch some of the spectacle (product and person based). In the meantime I would be satiating my techno-lust by updating my current phone to the new software and getting a feel for what my new and improved life will be like. Cut to me at work with a non-operational phone, sitting with a coworker, frantically trying to access the iTunes music store in order to reconnect to the digital world.

Earlier in the morning iTunes had offered to update my phone to v2.0, but I was running to a meeting and delayed the install. Post meeting I found my phone unwilling to admit that the today was the biggest launch in mobile history, adamently proclaiming that 1.1.4 was the most current version. Apparently my computer doesn’t read the same blogs I do. Nor does it understand my need for Monkey Ball. What to do? Restore the iPhone! (I promise, this seemed like a good idea. Forums are full of cases where older firmware updates wouldn’t take until users restored their phones from a backup.)

Well, apparently I wasn’t reading the right blogs. Crave reported (at about the time I restored) that the Apple has been overwhelmed, servers are down, customer service is swamped, and my scenario is far from unique. Then I ran across a post from my friend Chris who works for AT&T entitled “iUh Oh” (he explained things from his perspective here). The short of it is that I have no way to restore my phone while Apple servers are unavailable.

I am sure there is a LaTourian joke in here somewhere. One thing is clear. For the time being I own a brick that only asks me if I am experiencing an emergency (sure, I guess) while like a trained pigeon I repeatedly check to see if Apple servers have been restored. The bizarre saving grace? I know that this problem will go away as soon as I give this company a whole lot of money for my new phone.

UPDATE @ 3:53 PM EDT: I was able to connect to the Apple servers to restore my iPhone. No v2.0 software available yet, so for now my phone is going through the slow process of syncing everything back onto the device.

Additionally, Crave reported that “A reader added the text of a note he received from Apple in the comments. Apple blames the problem on ‘network congestion on the iTunes server,’ but says you should be able to update or restore the firmware once the traffic dies down.”

I have my own experience with super high volume traffic days (not here, of course… and I suppose it is silly to compare my professional work to Apple, but the point is…) and sometimes all you can do is just wait for the traffic to die down.