iPhone – not quite what Mr Jobs envisaged
Lynne says it was the first time I’ve joined a line for anything. But there I was, stood on the pavement outside the ATT store at 5pm, a full hour before distribution would start. The line was 40 strong, 10 of whom had sat there since 6am that morning. By 6pm there were 10 more enthusiasts behind me. I met some people I know, and the weather was warm and mild so the time passed pretty quickly, until that is the store doors opened at 6pm. Expectation was that we’d stream in, put down our monies and walk away clasping what we all come for the iPhone. After all, activation would take place at home, via iTunes – another of the revolutionary features of this revolutionary product – right? Wrong. There was no ’streaming-in’, it was a slow, unmoving shuffle that took another 100 minutes, as people opened-up ATT accounts, dealt with back-bills etc etc. We folks with existing ATT accounts, good credit and green-backs in-hand got no pref treatment. Very silly, and a waste of everyone’s time-especially mine. Meanwhile we were shepherded and ‘entertained’ by an Apple rep, who walked the line and who took great glee in withholding answers to reasonable questions and generally teasing we liner-uppers, queuing for his product.
To “How many iPhones do you have in the store?” the answer was “I can’t say”. Same to “Well, do you have enough?”. We only got anything like a reassuring answer when the question “Well, if you didn’t have enough for everyone in-line would you tell us??” was formulated and positively responded to. Annoying and arrogant on his and Apples part.
Not what Mr Jobs envisaged.
In the store it took me just 120 seconds to effect the purchase.
I got the 8GB iPhone home only to find the SIM card was defective. It said so on the screen. If only I’d opened it up in the store, which was now closed. The Apple Store , which I’d avoided thus far anticipating throngs of ‘dudes’ with goatees and ponytails, was open until midnight. I dashed over there. The place was open, and empty, with a stack of iPhones still for sale. A black-Tshirted ‘genius’ swapped mine for a iPhone with a working SIM (I checked!). And so to home, now midnight.
Firing up iTunes, the iPhone connected – and failed to activate. My ATT settings weren’t as it wanted them. Bah! To bed. Enough.
Not what Mr Jobs envisaged.
I was at the ATT store at 8.50am the next morning. They opened at 9, and watched me pound the pavement outside the store, staring at each other through the store windows until the stroke of 9 (nice job guys!).
They adjusted my account settings, complicated in-that Lynne and I share the account – duh! Then home, and had it working within minutes.
Not what Mr Jobs envisaged.
In the face of all of this torture I really like the device and its features and will test-drive some more before recording my experiences here.