As you may well know Apple’s iOS 5 was officially released at 6pm GMT today, but as with any software launch it hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing – far from it. For many users they are being thwarted by a pesky 3200 error when they are upgrading the iPhone, iPad or iPod’s software.
Its been so bad that the term 3200 is actually trending on twitter worldwide. We’ve successfully upgraded a 3GS to iOS5 and it took 6 attempts before we hit the jackpot. Here are a few things you should try before booking that genius bar appointment.
If you recently downloaded the new iTunes 10.5 update, make sure you restart your Macbook, iMac or Windows PC. This seems to have worked for several users.
Also try restarting your phone – this clears the cache and might just be the tonic for your iOS 5 woes. We restarted our phone and sure enough the next attempt was a smooth as a baby’s behind.
According to Apple, the trouble is due to the sheer number of users trying to upgrade at the same time and the Apple validation servers are obviously getting hammered. There are approximately 200 million Apple devices out there that are eligible for the iOS 5 upgrade – that’s an awful lot.
Many people are reporting that it took dozens of attempts before they successfully upgraded. For a stress-free experience we’d probably recommend that you hold off for a day or two if you want a seamless experience.
For us it took at least an hour, maybe even longer for the whole upgrade to complete. Then there’s the matter of reinstalling all the apps it needed to wipe to get the handset iOS 5 ready. Yes, you have to reinstall all your apps, as well as re-sync all of your music, videos and photos.
From the looks of it the sheer number of improvements are obviously too exciting for many to miss – so everyone is probably madly clicking the update iPhone button in the hope that it works.
Let’s hope that it’s as simple as being patient, and restarting the phone rather than something more worrying. This is a big week for Apple, who are hoping to seduce you with their iCloud service- a system is heavily reliant on fact that the servers need to work all the time – if not the service simply won’t work.
Apple’s last attempt to seduce its customers with the cloud was the ill-fated Mobile Me, which was a rare misstep for the Cupertino company. This isn’t a great start, but were sure Apple has planned for every eventuality, and a few niggles on day one is hardly unexpected.
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