Never Again: Second Coming of the Jesus Phone

I am more or less obliged to write a follow-up to my post last week, Cell Phone Device, We Meet Again. If you didn't read that, I'll summarize: Makal and I planned to get iPhone 3Gs on release day, and went to an AT&T store a week early to open the account so that our time in-store on release day would be shortened. Enter Friday morning...

6:30a - We leave the apartment, bleary eyed and hopeful, and head South to the mall where we set up our AT&T accounts.

~7a - Upon arrival we notice there are indeed lines, but the one at the AT&T store is much shorter than for the Apple store. We park and take our place. We are quickly told by a store manager that this location was only stocked with 40 iPhones, which were "called" by the 40 people in line in front of us (we are 42 and 43), some of whom had been camping the location since midnight. Because we had phones to exchange, we were not able to wait in the Apple store line; we could only purchase our iPhones from AT&T. The manager recommended we drive to the Beaverton AT&T store, which had about 80 phones and only 50 or so people in line. Frustrated and deceived, we leave Bridgeport.

7:30a - We find the AT&T store, which ironically is only 10 minutes from where we live. The line is wrapping around the building and we have no idea where we are in it, number wise, but we know we have two corners to turn before the front door. We wait. Luckily, we are surrounded by some pretty entertaining people. No one around us could be labeled a "geek" (yes, I can tell), which surprised me because I really thought it would only be the hardest of the hardcore geek and Apple fanboys who would be bold enough to attend a release day. These people... they joke about getting their children and friends to show them how to use their new phone. I know it's silly but this makes me angry; where are the hordes of the tech-literate? The savvy men and women who know exactly what the iPhone does, and were excitedly posting to their Twitter/Plurk/Friendfeed/whatever network about the magical excitement? These people didn't even know what Twitter is...

8:50a - We rounded the first corner. This was very welcome as we had been on the shady side of the building and were now basking in warm morning sunlight. No word from the store employees about their supplies or the innevitable cut-off point. I quietly plot revenge upon AT&T for their terrible organization and preparation for the release.

9:30a - Halfway along the wall (still another corner to go) and we have employees coming down the line and counting, but not telling us anything. They pretty much avoided eye contact as much as possible all morning, because they knew we would maim them. Finally, the same manager from the Bridgeport location came out and gave us a cut-off point: 5 people behind Makal and I. High Five! At least now when new people pull up in the marking lot, we can shout at them that the store is all out of iPhones. The manager works on explaining their "fulfillment" plan to the unhappy non-customers; it's not long before he tasks another employee with the job that nobody wants, and tells her to work her way to the end of the line. Suck.

10:30a - Finally to the last corner before the door! There was a guy with a clipboard asking people about what plans they were wanting and checking things off on a form sheet for the customer to hand to a sales rep. We didn't get a paper from him because we didn't need anything but the phone; he could have cared less about our presence after hearing that. Customer appreciation ftw. We stand in the door line for a few minutes, so near air conditioning (I had a mild sunburn at this point) and are just glad we get our phones after all. A man directing people to available sales reps tells us we need to stand in a specific line because of our exchange. Great, another line.

11:30a - Still in the special line for special people who had the special thought to sign up for the plan early and have to exchange our cheapo free phone. Somehow, the store keeps coming up with new iPhones, even though they had said they reached the cut-off point a while ago. Dozens of people left the lines when AT&T told them they were out of stock, and yet some random guy can walk in at 10:30 and say "I hear you're selling iPhones" and be handed a freaking box. WTF AT&T? Who is doing your math?!

12p - When we finally made it up to the counter that had our Post-it noted iPhones underneath, all the friendly people we chatted with in the line are long gone. So much for the "prep work" we did a week before to make our day shorter... The woman helping us was very friendly, but I was starting to wonder about the whole thing when she taped our SIM cards to the aforementioned Post-it notes and told us how to install the cards when we got home. That... doesn't seem like the sort of thing they should let us out of here without doing...

12:30p - We finally leave the store--which is almost baren of customers at this point--amid cheerful goodbyes of "Thanks for your patience!" and "Sorry you had to wait so long!" Right. Fuck off.

1p - Once arriving home, Makal plugs his phone into his comp to sync it. Activation wasn't working though, due to Apple's servers being under mass overload from all the newly purchased iPhones. (Who could have predicted that the servers would lag?!) As it gets close to 2p, the servers finally clear off enough for him to activate and sync his phone, just in time for him to leave and go to work. Shortly thereafter, I sync my own phone. And it is done.

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So, to summarive the events of July 1th as they relate to the iPhone 3G release: July 11th fucking blew. It blew monkey balls. I know it was no one's fault specifically, but SERIOUSLY PEOPLE. We started the day realizing that the helpful chap at the AT&T store a week before had told us some seriously white lies, and ended it with the store not even able to activate our phones, leaving us incommunicado until we could do so ourselves. Nothing I experienced on that day even minorly resembled an organized strategy or attempts at customer service.

I don't work in retail anymore, and I've never worked in a sysadmin capacity, but I'm pretty sure that either parties could have taken a number of fairly obvious steps to make the day go a helluva lot smoother for these dedicated people showing up to wait in lines, not even knowing if they'd get an iPhone for their troubles. Apple product release day: NEVER AGAIN.

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That being said, I am enjoying my new phone. It's pretty much what I expected it to be, but I still have occasional twinges of surrealism when I realize there are no buttons. Heh. And like any other computer, it crashes when I try to push it too hard, which seems to be at least once a day. Apparently, I can't edit my Google Calendar or Google Docs & Spreadsheets on the phone, even with the Google Mobile app but I can look at them. And I can interact with JavaScript even though it says it is enabled in the settings. But I can make phone calls! And listen to music! And take pictures! And immediately post them to teh intarnets! But not all at once, of course. Hey, it's just a phone.