[douglas_goodall]

I don't know where you were or what you saw, but it bares no resemblance to the reality of the fiasco today. They refused to give any guidance about the number in stock. I drove an hour to get to the nearest Apple store, and when I arrived there, they had already run out of black 16GB phones. The process was designed by the devil. ATT made this as difficult as it could have possible been including denying upgrade privs on all my phones, requiring me to terminate my AARP discount permanently at the start of the transaction. In all respects the experience was a disaster. The only good thing was the salesperson did their best, which still left me with a dead cellphone and no more discount. I am not sure why you are sucking up in your remarks about ATT but you have zero credibility in my opinion.

[douglas_goodall]

Doug, thank you for documenting the nightmare of AT&T contrasted with the patience and pain of an Apple representative TRYING to hook you up with several new iPhones. Please broadcast this to a list of parties working toward the success of the iPhone and positive public perception of Apple. It is clear that AT&T doesn't care and is more intently greedy and opportunistic than ANY service provider I've known. So it is.

I want to know WHATApple was thinking when this deal was struck? My long and positive association with Apple has suffered some serious damage as a result of this twisted partnership, whether they were awake and didn't get it or were knowingly careless with the their long-loyal, and newfound customers alike. Bad blood either way.
D. L. Goodall

[Phrehdd]

What I believe Apple is more concerned about is getting as many phones out as possible over the weekend. If problems occur they will be forgotten later.

As for AT&T, I believe Apple went into a contract with them and thus are attached at the hip for another year or two. AT&T is a greedy company and all the claims of a "cheaper phone" is pure BS that even Apple is promoting. The phones are not cheaper if you realize the total cost. It costs more for the phone plus the 2 year contract than the original iPhones. - It is misleading. Shame on you Apple and AT&T yeah business as usual for you... mediocre service and over charging.

I'll wait a long while before considering upgrading to this iPhone. Who knows maybe AT&T will miraculously become ethical and lower their disturbingly high price for the 2 year contract. Remember, 3G only makes them competitive with other providers and yet we the customer have to pay for it while not gaining the "best" but on par with others.

I left Whinedoze because it really is a bad OS and enjoy my Macs and remain with mixed feelings about my iPhone (which I really do want to like). Apple come on guys...cut us some slack.

[kcartesius]

This is a joke, right?

Stand in line for even a minute to buy a phone?
Being let in in groups by some salesmen?
Having to have the phone activated like some MS Windows?

All this for a... cellphone?

When I bought my first Mac in 1985, I was welcome at the store and got excellent, fast service, too.

Steve, Woz... What has the world become? Real-life WoW?

[radioguy]

It wasn't just iPhone activation that was screwed up. DotMac was also down for most of Thursday -- a real pain for people like me who have a website hosted there. We couldn't update our sites all day, nor access our accounts.
A difficult couple of days in Cupertino. It is very un-Apple (maybe Scully is back as CEO?)

[douglas_goodall]

Tell me about it. When I needed my att password, I went to the att site and tried the password recovery. They sent my new password to the d....@mac.com email address. I tried to use an apple store mac to browse the www.mac.com site to read my email to get my new password, but the web mail was down because of the me conversion. There is a rude term that describes the whole scene, and the first word is "cluster". This was the most painful experience I have ever had trying to buy something. Right up there with buying a house.

[KenKlinger]

Good God! Talk about layer upon layer of pitfalls--you've been through it all, I think. All that work, most of it being done in your loved one's behalf too, I'd think there's someone at AT&T with half a brain who could straighten-out such a mess. It really ticks me off in that HUGE amounts of money are centered around not only the gigantic up-front HW costs (the iPhones) BUT down the road AT&T's got you tethered to several plans, all times 24-month bills, to boot. I opted-out of my southern-based SunCom plan and paid the $200 fee in order to subscribe to AT&T and have an iPhone... only to run back to Apple 10 days later when they released the 16Gb... it boggles the mind when thinking that ALL that's gone on since the initial release of the phone, only one year ago. It's like some conspiracy story gone bad -- I'm beginning to see a giant iPhone in place of the giant monolith found on the moon in '2001, a Space Odyssey'. It's frightful to think of how the gen'l public's being manipulated on one hand, but the seriously scary part is that the GP's loving every bit of it -- to the tune of how many iPhones out there? It's staggering. A million-and-a-half iPhones were shipped to be sold yesterday... read 'em and weep.

[douglas_goodall]

Does that make us the monkeys dancing around the monolith with our credit cards in our paws? Thank you for your condolences. On behalf of everyone who suffered on release day, I accept them from you with thanks. I feel like there has been a large disturbance in the force. Like million of voices cried out in pain. Keep up with your training (buying).

[chadhorton]

duplicate

[chadhorton]

duplicate

[chadhorton]

I don't know why I'm adding to the comments here as it will get me no where, but, so does complaining to Apple and AT&T. This experience has totally tainted my perception and experience with Apple.
I went to the Apple store on 7/11 at 9am and hit the down server issue and was told that it would be 4-5 hours before they would be fixed. I walked around the mall and 45 minutes later it was fixed but I couldn't stick around. I came back in the afternoon and stood in line for 2 hours eagerly awaiting getting my iPhone.
I had everything I needed, the iPhone 8GB with the MobileMe and the extended warranty. I pulled out my debit card and the Apple employee told me that there was a problem and that I didn't qualify for the $199 price. I had no idea what he was talking about as I must not have read the fine print (which I later did and it mentions "*must qualify). He explained that since I didn't qualify that he could sell it to me for $539 at the retail price. He couldn't give me a reason why I didn't qualify and suggested I call AT&T (perfectly set up to pass the buck to someone not in person to take the customers wrath). I spoke to a manager and since I had not been with them the full term of my contract yet, and had gotten a rebated phone when I signed up that they can't give me another. The only reason I got the crap phone I did was to get the iPhone when it came out. The manager offered me an even more rebated price of $399 (gee thanks). Even after threatening to cancel my account, they didn't care. They would rather lose a current paying customer than to just give me the damn "rebate." So today I take my father with me as he has AT&T and is out of his contract to see about having him purchase the phone with me in person as well, and then activate it to my account. They said that wasn't possible either, and that's "how AT&T set it up."
So, now I'm pissed at AT&T and Apple and will definitely be canceling my AT&T account when my contract is up, and won't be purchasing an iPhone.

[douglas_goodall]

The full price of the 8GB unit is $399. I am not sure where these other numbers come from. I am sorry for your experience. It is frustrating to have them block you at every turn, where every issue leaves the price higher and higher. If you make a deal with your dad to have him own the account, he can buy the phone for $199 and you can have a phone, but you won't be able to keep your number. That is for full price clients only.

[techietype]

Apple was clearly not ready to reveal MobileMe quite so soon. The me.com site is extremely slow, if it works at all! Also, the automatic sync feature which lets you use the push email/calendar/contacts in conjunction with iCal, Mail, and Address Book on your mac "isn't ready yet" according to Apple... Whats the point of push email/contacts/calendar if you can only use it all on one device (the phone its self). Not to mention, Apple only has chat support for MobileMe. Who do they think they are? Dell? I am also agitated that Apple doesn't seem to be very active in solving these problems, nor were they too worried about the activation problems. Apple's level of quality just jumped off the top of the Empire State Building and has hit "rock bottom".

[douglas_goodall]

For what it is worth, the manager of the Apple Store in San Luis Obispo called me by phone today to follow up on my experience at the store on Friday. We discussed the difficulties and were able to agree that ATT was responsible for the majority of them. She took responsibility for those that Apple created including the choice of cellular partner. She was concerned that her staff had done their best to work through the problems, and I assured her they had tried their best, although ATT had set the rules in a way that was extremely difficult. After the call, I was at least sure that the store wanted very badly to do their best. I am convinced of the sincerity of the locals and will continue to buy from them when I have needs. As unhappy as I was with Apple and AT+T on Friday, I have to admit that it is corporate that I have hard feelings with and not the local store, who were constrained by policies, stock, and local conditions. Overall the locals were all nice to me.