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At the flagship Apple Store on Stockton Street in San Francisco, the doors opened just a little before the official 8:00a release, ushering in two groups of 20 people, followed by the members of the media in a special line off to the side.

Upstairs on the second level, the first 20 were being helped by Apple Store employees at the Genius Bar (instead of at the checkout terminal on the first floor), while the other 20 stood in another line, waiting their turn.

About ten or so was the maximum that could be helped at the Genius Bar itself, while ten others were floating around in various parts of the store helped by more Apple Store employees.

15 minutes into the official opening of the store, the lack of noise and excitement was pretty nerve racking. Only because during last year's iPhone release, this same store was packed full on both floors, with the action happening first at the table with the iPhones (customers taking them for a test drive), and the second at the checkout terminal on the first floor.

To help with the overflow, the Genius Bar was turned into a checkout terminal. This year, that was the place where everything happened. Or, didn't happen.

Downstairs, a reporter for the ABC News station was just standing by idly, asking an Apple Store employee about wire reports stating that in New York, there were a bunch of problems with customers not being able to activate their iPhones.

Back upstairs, it was becoming apparent that something was up (or down?) as customers were just sitting there with Apple Store employees standing just as idle as the ABC News reporter who tipped us off, not knowing that he did.

A person on the phone, not an iPhone though, was busy talking to someone about how the iPhones couldn't be activated due to Apple's transaction system. Trying to confirm this, we learned he was a reporter for CNET.com, so we shared our information with him, to which he then called back his contact and asked them to add a new piece of info, and to confirm it too.

Understandably, Apple Store employees couldn't (and wouldn't) confirm anything.

As you may or may not know, Apple uses a portable device (oddly enough not an Apple device like an iPod, since their checkout system machine is either a MacBook Pro or an iMac on the counter) to check out customers paying by credit card, on the spot, so they don't have to go in line to complete their transactions.

Since these were the devices that all employees were using to handle the customers' iPhone purchases and transactions, it wouldn't have been that far off to lay blame to the devices.

The funny thing about that day was the color of their uniforms, an almost powder blue, like that of the medical crew on the original U.S.S. Enterprise during the Capt. Kirk era of the TV show. Add that look, with the portable devices for checkout, and then the problems that would ensue?

"He's dead Jim." But not even Dr. McCoy could bring these 3G iPhones to life. Just as any officer on the Starship Enterprise knows, without a connection to the mother ship, you're all alone on the surface until you re-establish communications.

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