"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Just as in the last two years, once again, activation issues are giving new iPhone users a painful experience.

Specifically, it's because of the huge numbers of iPhone 3G S buyers who are all trying to activate within a short period of time. It's not new or unexpected, to be honest. And despite my comment about repeating the past, this issue only crops up once a year (thus far), so it's probably not cost-effective to beef up the servers just for a one-day event.

On the other hand, if Apple had allowed the web pre-orders to go through it would have spread out activations and lessened this problem.

According to the message that some are receiving in iTunes (above), it may take as much as 48 hours to complete the activation. The key phrase, though is, "up to." For me, it took 3 hours to activate.

Some are reporting that if you call AT&T and have your SIM card number (using the SIM extraction tool provided) and the IMEI (from the box) a rep can activate it for you. I was about to do this when my iPhone 3G S told me it was good to go.