Apple’s iPhone 4S became available to the general public today, and the launch appears to have been an overwhelming success. Yankee Group analyst Carl Howe believes Apple could close out the weekend having sold as many as 4 million new iPhones. We’ve been hearing from proud new iPhone owners across the country all day — and we’ve also been hearing about all the crazy things they’ve been asking poor Siri — but we’ve also heard from an unhappy minority that seems to have fallen victim to fulfillment problems. Read on for more.

Updated with comment from AT&T.

Beyond an odd complaint here and there, things seem to be going well for Verizon Wireless and Sprint subscribers who emailed us today. We’ve also heard from plenty of happy AT&T customers, but there appears to have been an issue with pre-sales in some cases, and a number of AT&T customers have emailed us with war stories.

“[An AT&T customer care representative] confirmed phones would be shipping to customers for arrival on 10/14, but when nothing in my account changed I spoke with 2 others who confirmed all phones will be shipping with a 2 to 3 week delay,” one reader told BGR in an email. “For someone who purchased early the morning of 10/7 this is a complete let down.”

Several more BGR readers offered similar complaints, saying that orders placed early in the morning on October 7th are now being delayed by two or more weeks. A few other readers found that their orders had been canceled with no explanation given.

As it turns out, customers who had their orders canceled often found themselves in a better position than subscribers with delays. Those who tried to cancel their delayed orders with the intention of going to a retail store to purchase a new phone have often times been unable to do so, according to multiple emails we received. Due to the pending order status, customers would be forced to pay full MSRP for new iPhones since their accounts are no longer eligible for subsidized upgrades.

Dealings with customer care have been mixed to this point, according to accounts given by BGR readers. Several emails recount lengthy conversations that led nowhere as customer service was unable to determine the status of iPhone orders. At least one BGR reader said that AT&T offered to waive the $18 upgrade fee on his account, however he was still unaware of the status of his order at the time this article was published.

Customers with war stories always shout louder than those for whom orders have gone smoothly, and considering AT&T took in more than 200,000 pre-orders on October 7th alone, there were bound to be some bumps in the road. AT&T did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

UPDATE: AT&T provided the following statement to BGR via email: “We are fulfilling orders on schedule in nearly every case.  We are aware of a small number of customers who have questions about their delivery timing and are working with one-on-one with each to answer questions.”

It’s not the update you’ve been waiting for, rather it’s the update the will allow you to get the update you’ve been waiting for. Of course we’re talking about Windows Phone 7, and the small, quirky code bundle Microsoft has been attempting to rollout for the past two weeks. After halting the update to Samsung handsets back on February 23rd, the company resumed sending the software to users’ devices this week. And unfortunately, it looks like Windows Phone users with Samsung handsets are continuing to have issues — problems Microsoft admits via Twitter it is “aware of” and is “looking into.” The small package being pushed by Microsoft patches Windows Phone’s updater mechanism, preparing it for the more significant NoDo update that is set to bring copy and paste functionality, amongst other things, to WP7 later this month. Not the most impressive software rollout we’ve ever seen, but hopefully Microsoft and friends have this whole mess sorted out by the time NoDo is a gogo. 

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The sleek new MacBook Air models unveiled late last month are the slimmest computers Apple has ever produced — but the manufacturer still managed to find the space to pack in a few troublesome bugs. Early MacBook Air adopters have taken to various forums as they voice complaints surrounding Apple’s new MacBook Air (Late 2010) models. While Apple has yet to address any of the reported issues publicly, a source informed BGR that the manufacturer is investigating several of them internally. Included among the issues is a bug where the display flickers or shows horizontal lines of varying colors when a computer wakes from sleep or after hot-plugging a display. Another bug causes the screen to fade from light to dark repeatedly after waking from sleep. Apple’s internal support system includes suggestions for interim fixes in each of these cases, but no permanent fixes are available at this time.

Apple has stated internally that the aforementioned issues have been isolated and will be addressed in an upcoming software update. When dealing with customers, Apple employees have been instructed to state that the company is aware of these issues and is working on solutions. Hit the break for another screen shot.

One of our readers has a pretty interesting story to share. It is one that involves his passion for Apple products, an Apple engineer, Steve Jobs, and reported problems with the iPhone 4′s antenna placement. Let’s call the person talking to Apple and Steve Jobs “Tom”… Tom recorded a video which he posted on YouTube. That video demonstrated the iPhone 4′s now well known issue of signal degration when being held mostly on the left lower side of the phone. Apparently, Apple noticed the video, and reached out directly to Tom. While talking with Apple, Tom was informed that Apple doesn’t consider this an issue, and that anything online is just “rumor hysteria”. Apple also asked Tom not to post further videos.

Tom followed up by emailing the Apple engineer and Steve Jobs directly. Below is the email thread broken down. We have verified the email headers and information, and believe this exchange to be 100% legitimate.

Updated…

First email:

[Apple engineer name redacted],

When we spoke, you would not tell me that there is a fix for this phone?

A friend just sent me this: http://www.bgr.com/2010/06/29/leaked-apples-internal-iphone-4-antenna-troubleshooting-procedures/

I assume there is no fix then. If this is legit, I have lost all respect for apple and just want to go back to Verizon and get a nice Android phone. And don’t tell me they have the same issues, all our co-workers with Androids are just mocking us right now…. “Hey, I am going to go in the basement and continue my call. You can use my office on the 2nd floor so you can get a signal”. You are going to kill your brand over one product. Apple is coming off arrogant and rude. If there is no fix just tell people so they can return their phones. We have work to do. I have bought just about every apple product made in the last 20 years  and this is the 1st time I am ashamed to be a MAC fan.

This is just  sickening,

[Tom]

Here is Steve Jobs’ reply:

No, you are getting all worked up over a few days of rumors.  Calm down.

Our reader’s response:

I am really insulted… “Calm down”…. “rumors”… What arrogance. This is will be marked as the begging of the end of Apple. Seriously, DO THE RIGHT THING. I just had dinner with 3 people who had iPhone 4s we all cant make calls without dropping. There is no rumors it is reality.

Steve Jobs counters:

You are most likely in an area with very low signal strength.

Our reader again:

Stop with jackass comments. I have has every iphone made. They all had a bad signal but this is the so much worse X3. The whole country is is in a “low signal strength” in reality… all but apple campus and your house it seems? AT&T maps are a joke. I am in “excellent” to “good” coverage and on my iPhone 1, Iphone 3G, and my iPhone 3Gs, I could  at least make a telephone call. After all, it is a phone. Iphone 4…. 5 bars….. touch the phone… ZERO bars call drops.

Steve. IT DOES NOT WORK! Geezzz I hope this this is not really you. Are we on a different MHz? I have yet to see an iPhone [4] work in Richmond when you hold it in your hand. It is not “isolated”. I was a big fan. But I am done.

Steve responds once again:

You may be working from bad data. Not your fault. Stay tuned. We are working on it.

Sent from my iPhone

And lastly, Tom emails in again:

Retire, relax, enjoy your family. It is just a phone. Not worth it.

What are your thoughts on this one? Is Tom in the right? Did he get a little too aggressive with his emails? Do you believe Steve Jobs when he says Apple is actively working on it?

UPDATE: The last line in the email exchange was actually not said by Mr. Jobs; rather it was by “Tom.” We corrected it as soon as we were made aware.

UPDATE 2: Added email header information and full exchange..

We’ve got a lot of tips on this over the course of the morning but wanted to double check them to be safe. In short, we’re told that many, many new Nokia 5800 NAM owners are returning their units to the Flapship points of purchase, due to an issue with the handset not properly connecting to the internet. Now, our unit got 3G/3.5G signal fine in NYC over AT&T’s network, but we’re told many other units don’t pick up signal at all in a lot of locations. Literally another Nokia next to it will have 5 bars and the 5800 won’t have any. And yes, they’ve all confirmed they have NAM units and the boxes say “850MHz/1900MHz UMTS”. I’d turn my unit on again to check this out but it’s honestly not worth it. Stay in the box, 5800. You’re at peace.

Thanks, to everyone that hit us up!

Thanks, Jacob!

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We gave you our iPhone list, and while this probably has many more minor annoyances than actual feature omissions, we still thought it would be fun to put a list of our gripes together. Some of these might be device-specific, but you’ll get a general feel for the direction we’re going and why these things piss us off to no end.

1. The ridiculous limit on file sizes when downloading from the browser. Look, if I want to download a friggin’ video file, let me.

2. Attachments are pretty bad and it has to do with RIM’s ever-so-sneaky compression. We’ve heard that when data is sent over their network, it literally can take a 100kb file and compress it to around 7kb. (A carrier’s dream). Just let us get the entire file without having to constantly wait for it to render when we zoom it, etc.

3. Specifically speaking for the Bold, the “R” shortcut key no longer takes you to the Alarm. This pains me.

4. Actually, about shortcuts… for a product that excels on making your life easier and offering up a ton of user-customization, there is no reason we shouldn’t be able to program our own shortcut keys. If I want the letter “B” to take me to the Memo Pad, then let me do it damn it. I’m tired of being stuck at the mercy of RIM’s shortcut key assignment. They make no sense and they are hardly integrated in 3rd party applications.

5. When you get a pop-up menu, there are no boundaries to where you can scroll. Let’s use one of the Application Permissions screens. Why am I allowed to scroll above “Yes” and below “No”? There are only two options yet it seems as if you could scroll to China before selecting one of them.

6. Horrible APIs that developers can’t access. If RIM opened these up, we’d have a much better set of applications on there than we do now. I’m not sure anyone can say 3rd party apps are one of BlackBerry’s strengths.

6 and a 1/2. One of the reasons the OS is so bad at times is because of the nature of the device — security. We know this is why over 50,000 of them are deployed across the U.S. Government for instance, but look, RIM either needs to deploy a consumer brand or find a way to make this work. Security is great and all, but stick to what you know. You’re either the businessman’s savior or the tween’s IM machine. It’s incredibly difficult to be both. Don’t try and conquer the music industry or take on Apple’s App Store. It won’t work and you’re diverting precious resources away from other serious projects.

7. Build quality has been declining. That’s not to say there aren’t some BlackBerrys that will last forever, but from personal experience, every device since the Bold has suffered countless production issues and problems. (Anyone get the screen freak out on their Bolds? I bet you have.) I’d be interested in seeing the average lifespan of a BlackBerry now compared to two years ago. I think it would be shocking.

8. When sending an email with a local file attachment, show me the status! I want to watch it go from 1%-100%! It comforts me.

9. Desktop Manager shouldn’t take forever to update the operating system. I think it’s fair to say RIM has the longest OS update time in the biz.

10. Stop with the “More” crap. Let me get the entire email message when I want it. Also let HTML emails load external images automatically. Yes, yes, we know. It’s for security. But you know what, if I want to venture out on a limb and *gasp* download external .jpgs automatically, let me!

Look, we love our iPhones as much as the person, but at this late point in the game, there are some things that are just inexcusable. Here’s our top 10 things we hate about the iPhone, and we’ll post up our top 10 things we hate about the Bold later on. Feel free to chime in with your own! Also note that we’re talking about the iPhone in its default state, not a jailbreaked unit. Here’s our list in no particular order:

1. You can’t use custom sounds for email notifications, SMS, etc.

2. Copy and paste. Sorry, but it’s ridiculous at this point.

3. When forwarding an email with an attachment, the iPhone sends it out locally. That means if you have a 1MB attachment, you have to send 1MB worth of data when forwarding. This doesn’t happen on Windows Mobile or the BlackBerry — it’s sent from the server. Not cool.

4. No unified inbox. At this point, there’s no reason you should have to go through the rigmarole of switching through tabs and endless menus to get to another email inbox. Cut this down, give us color-coded emails that correspond with that particular account — something!

5. Video recording. Again, it’s technically possible, but we don’t have it.

6. The touch screen capture button in the Camera application is horrid. Let’s use one of the volume keys or something to take a picture. It’s not a good setup.

7. You can’t forward text messages. Something that is a no-brainer just isn’t here.

8. There isn’t a way to delete individual calls from the recent call list. Not that we need to hide anything from our girlfriends or anything…

9. No file structure that is user-accessible. That means you can’t save any attachment that isn’t a photo, you can’t download files from websites, etc. Additionally, each application can only access its own file structure so you can forget about doing anything sexy.

10. The push-background notification service is still nowhere to be found.