Ok folks finally got the chance to take my ATv3 to the Apple shop in Canberra Centre.
Walked up to the Genius bar and was told I had to make an appointment and come back later......
3 hours later took my ATV3 back again and talked to a great Apple staffer (Steffan) who listened patentiently to my explanation (I had a print out of this htead with me just in case!). I was *really* concerned about the whole Apple support/Genius bar thing due to previous experience with Telstra/Optus/ISP tech support where basically the support people treat you like idiots/liars/con-men asking you 'did you plug it in', 'have you done the update', 'was the unit swittched on'....blah blah blah. I have to say I was ready for that from Apple but the apporach was completely different. Steffan listened and understood, recognised that I have a pretty high lelvel of tech expereince and didnt insult my intelligence......
He asked whether we could plug the thing in and boot it up -we did - no wifi (thank goodness). Has asked if we could reset/upgrade in the shop, we did, no wifi again (thank goodness again). He immediately gave me a new one with no issues.
He told me he had updated his atv3 a few days ago without problems and that I shouldnt be worried about accepting the update when I got home. I told him I was very worried and could we do it in the shop? Sure he said. So we updated the brand new atv3 out of the box. Worked perfectly and when complete it had wireless. Brought it home and it works perfectly.
So after about 30 mins in the Apple store, thanks to Steffan, I have a new working ATV3 running 5.1. I wont be accepting any future updates for at least a month after they come out 🙂 I guess I am lucky that I have an Apple store nearby (only opened a few weeks ago) and the thing still failed in the store.
So it seems this update doesn't *always* fail.....maybe something to do with the configuration status at thet time of the upgrade - who knows?
So I am fixed - good luck to the rest of you who are still dealing with this issue.