Today's Sad iPhone Story

Guard iPhone
Originally uploaded by Major Clanger.

Today I left home at 6:30 and got in line at the Apple store for a 3G iPhone. I was there at 6:45, listening to my old phone and ready to wait (no coffee!). I was excited; I don't usually do this sort of thing, I thought it would be fun to be part of the moment (especially as I had been there when Steve Jobs announced it).

At 7:54 they opened the doors and the first people went in. We watched and waited... and waited.. at 8:45 some of them came out, it was taking 45 minutes to activate the phones! Wow. At this point several people left the line, including some people in front of me. The Apple staff were very friendly, told us what was happening and saying they hoped it would get better.

It got better. By 9:30 I was in! The Apple employee who helped me had purple hair and sparkly purple boots, he seemed as happy as I was. I picked my phone and additional stuff (Apple Care etc). Then I tried to pay.

The computer said no.

The computer said that I had a corporate discount so I needed to go to an AT&T store to buy a phone. Nooooo! I used to have a corporate discount but it didn't apply to the iPhone so I wasn't using it. So they gave me a phone to call AT&T, who said they had taken off the discount. Still no joy. They called AT&T. They put them on to me. It was not possible to activate at the Apple store period. They put me on hold and called around. The local AT&T stores were already out of phones. They had no process for me to buy a phone at the Apple store but activate it at the AT&T store. I was not allowed an iPhone.

So I left the Apple store and went to the AT&T store. I waited another 30 minutes to pre-order an iPhone which will take 10 days to arrive. (I didn't want to wait again and AT&T stores have so little stock).

Maybe one day I will have a new iPhone... I'll think twice about waiting in line again. I blame AT&T. Interestingly the Apple people did not blame anyone - the AT&T people blamed Apple. I blame AT&T's crazy processes.