Apple hyped its 3G iPhone as twice as fast for half the price. But Friday, giddy new users across the world waited hours for their glossy slice of the future, only to find a "no service" notification staring balefully back.

The near-meltdown at the phone's release was a mark against Apple, whose innovative products and shrewd marketing have created millions of happy customers.

"Apple prides themselves on design, usability, ease of use, and this is just the worst I've ever had with a product," said Scott Hurff, who works at ChannelAdvisor, a Morrisville technology company.

The 3G iPhone is the most significant update since the original was released last year. At $199, the cheapest model is half the upfront price of its predecessor, with faster Internet access and a global positioning system. There's a new App Store, where users can buy small programs to run on their phones.

The phone went on sale in 21 countries Friday morning. Its debut went smoothly at Triangle stores, with more than 150 people lining up at Crabtree Valley Mall's Apple store. Cheers rang out as doors opened at 8 a.m., while roving Chick-fil-A and Lindt truffle peddlers made sure the masses were fed.

But Friday's influx of iPhones quickly flooded Apple's computer networks, frustrating customers.

Pat Bowers of Raleigh spent nearly four hours trying to activate his. "It was unbelievably frustrating," he said. "This was poor planning on Apple's part. This was one of the biggest companies releasing the biggest product in the world.

"If they're looking at all these billions of dollars generated on one day, they should have already spent the money on bigger, newer, faster servers."

Many of the Apple faithful dismissed Friday's glitches as a minor price for getting the latest must-have geek gadget. AT&T, which is the iPhone's exclusive cell-service provider in the United States, reported Friday evening that it sold out of iPhones at most of its stores nationwide.

At 5 p.m. Friday, more than 200 people stood in line outside Apple's Crabtree store.

Amanda Waterman Springs spent seven hours in line before getting hers. She said she had had a great time: "We made some new friends, we made some new business contacts."

Some owners of earlier iPhone models also were affected by the service snags.

Jess Martin of Apex logged in Friday morning to install the iPhone 2.0 software on his first-generation model, a process he described as uneventful. But when he went to reactivate the device -- the same step that stymied new iPhone owners -- Martin says it took him more than an hour to get access to Apple's iTunes online store.

Martin said the glitch was "surprisingly a huge deal. I don't have a home phone where I live, and I have not talked on a noncellular phone in over a year. I had to borrow my friend's land line and everything. I've become totally dependent on my iPhone."

It was not clear what caused the delay or who was responsible. Apple's phone-service partner AT&T pointed the finger at Apple's iTunes site. Efforts to reach Apple were unsuccessful.

The church of Mac

Many customers were largely oblivious.

Lorrie Donovan went to the AT&T store in Cary's Crossroads shopping center. When she arrived at midnight, she was seventh in line.

Rather than the 15-minute setup that AT&T and Apple had promised, Donovan said, her setup took three attempts and about 30 minutes. "They took all the information three times over, including your license, your telephone number, your current phone number, if you had one, your whole nine yards," she said.

As the Apple store at Crabtree mall opened Friday, customers included Jeremiah McLand, Tommy Chester, Matt Coleman and Caleb Epler, all of Fayetteville. McLand knew his fellow travelers from Northwood Temple Church, where Coleman is the worship pastor and Chester is a youth pastor.

The store, McLand said, "is an Apple church. The church of the Mac."

Other shoppers were less enthralled.

"I wouldn't stand in that line for nothing," said Arnold Denny, 83, of Raleigh.

(Staff writers Sue Stock and John Murawski contributed to this report.)