Owners of the iPhone and iPhone 3G are likely awaiting today's arrival of iPhone operating system 3.0 with baited breath. Be prepared to stick it out for a few more hours. Reports suggest it will become available to everyone at 1 PM EST / 10 AM PST.On Twitter last night, it was apparent that many were staying up late in the hopes that Apple would offer iPhone OS 3.0 right at midnight on June 17. It didn't happen.

During the overnight hours, scattered reports first suggested that the update was going to be delayed until tomorrow, June 18. Those reports turned out to be erroneous, as they were based on a screen grab from Apple's Singapore Web site, which is, at times, a calendar day ahead of the U.S.

Now, reports suggest that the iPhone OS update will go live at 1PM EST. Apparently the wireless network operator 3 sent a text message to its subscribers saying that the update would go live at 01:00 AM, local time, on June 18. Bouncing back across time zones, that means 7PM CET, 6PM GMT, 1PM EST, and 10 AM PST.

Personally, I think it would be a mistake for Apple to release the operating system update to everyone around the globe all at once. According to Apple's numbers, there are currently 20 million or more people using iPhone OS (that includes both active iPhones and iPod Touches).

iPhone OS 3.0 is roughly 250MB in size. Do you think Apple's servers can handle it if 20 million people all attempt to download the 250MB OS update from its servers all at once? Experience tells us that this might not work out so well for everyone.

In any event, looks like we need to it tight for the time being. Let the game begin.