An hour and a half after the store opened I’m still waiting and have only seen a limited number of iPhone 3G owners leave the store (about 15 to 20 by my count). The holdup seems to be in the activation of the phone, it appears that the activation servers have problems with the heavy traffic. Much like the original iPhone launch a year ago when users reported problems with activation, only this time you’re having to wait at the store for the activation to complete.

There are a ton of demo units in the store and they have all been activated prior to the launch, a few demo games are installed and all free applications are downloadable.

In addition to the activation problems, customers with a “fan” added to their account (an employee discount) are not able to activate the new iPhone 3G at the Apple store. Apple store employees were telling those of us waiting in line with “fan accounts” to goto an AT&T store or to remove the fan status from our accounts.

When I get my iPhone 3G I’ll update the site with details on how long each step took.