I’ve been a loyal Apple fan since my first Apple II way back when, even sticking with Apple during the tough times when Steve wasn’t around.

It’s been a frustrating few months though.

This morning, I spent a couple of hours troubleshooting what should have been a simple upgrade to OS 3.0 for my iPhone. I went through the download process, and this is what I got:

Of course I had a SIM in the phone, and there is no SIM PIN, but my iPhone screen just locked up, displaying a USB cable symbol and, for some inexplicable reason, flashing messages in French.

It took me six cycles of shutting everything down and restarting everything to get the new OS to work, and then I had to do a complete restore. Everything works fine now, so I’m pacified for the time being.

It seems like a lot of other people have experienced similar FAILs with the iPhone 3.0 software upgrade.

This follows on my experience of wasting four to five hours resolving software conflicts when I upgraded to Safari 4.0 recently, and the 18 to 24 hours it took me to troubleshoot someone else’s iPod Touch, which wouldn’t sync with iTunes (In that instance, I again had to find help from other users on the Apple support forum experiencing the same problem, because the people in the Apple Genius Bar couldn’t resolve the issue).

Plus, it seems like it took Apple far too long to address a major Java security flaw, which everyone including Apple seemed to know about for months.

I remain an Apple fan, but I certainly hope my iFrustration with Apple software of late isn’t a byproduct of the company’s success over the past few years.