Engadget is reporting that Apple's iTunes activation servers - the ones needed to activate all those new iPhones - have crashed. Folks are being sent home in droves from AT&T and Apple stores with shiny new unactivated handsets.

Apparently, consumers are being asked to take their new iPhone 3G home and go online to activate the phone themselves. As far as we can tell, the only difference that will make is to get angry customers out of the stores and get them swearing at their computers instead as they get the lovely "server too busy" message on the screen.

But, hey, it's not as if Apple has been through this before with an earlier iPhone model, or had any way of anticipating the hordes of people who'd be lining up to buy the thing today in 22 countries since there hasn't been much in the press about it since the launch was announced...

Hmmm. Ok, scratch that last paragraph.