Try again now.

Though Apple’s not saying so publicly, it appears that a few tweaks have been made on the company’s end to the online elements of the installation process. Folks who suffered through various iOS 5 installation woes earlier in the week are able to complete the upgrade now. (At various points during the iOS upgrade process, your computer checks in with Apple’s servers. Perhaps those servers became overloaded during the mad rush to upgrade on Wednesday; perhaps only a few such servers behaved poorly. Apple hasn’t clarified what the cause was for any iOS 5 release day snags.)

The good news is, whatever the problems were, things seem better now. contributor Joel Mathis successfully upgraded his iOS devices late Wednesday night; senior contributor Rob Griffiths and I both finally upgraded the last of our own iOS devices Friday morning, after many dozens of attempts between us.

Whatever server wizardry Apple may have performed, it seems to be working: While a few reports Friday suggested occasional hiccups with , overall, such complaints have been surprisingly few. Senior editor Roman Loyola activated a new Sprint iPhone 4S early Friday, and other than spending too much time on hold with Sprint, he says the online elements of his new activation went smoothly.