Apple's iPhone Activation Servers Are Apparently Down, Rendering New Phones Pretty Much Useless

We're seeing several reports that Apple's iPhone activation servers are experiencing outages.

These are the servers that help switch on and register your iPhone with Apple when you turn it on for the first time. Your iPhone is pretty much useless until the Apple can activate it.

We've reached out to Apple and a few carriers for comment on the cause of the outage and will update if we hear back.