iPhone 3G day- another false shortage?
Today’s the big day and everywhere you look on the interwebs you see pictures of lines of folks waiting to get their 15 minutes of fame. That’s the amount of time that AT&T says it takes to activate each iPhone sold. I decided this morning to see for myself if there is big demand for the iPhone 3G here locally and headed for my AT&T store since it’s just down the street. All Apple stores and AT&T stores opened at 8 am to start selling the phone so I drove up to the AT&T store at about 8:15. This is a small AT&T store in a strip center, not a big outlet or anything.
I admit I was surprised to see over 50 people in line waiting to get in the store. I spoke with a few of them in the back of the line and most of those folks were at their second location, having given up at the first they went to pre-8 am due to the long line. While I was talking to them an AT&T rep came out and informed the folks toward the end of the line that they would not have enough phones to go around but that those who waited could take advantage of their "direct fulfillment" program. He explained how it worked and it’s basically a "pay us now, take delivery later" program. Much to my suprise most of those in line decided to wait it out just to get in to pre-pay for their iPhone 3G. I asked the rep how long they’ve been told to estimate delivery of those directly fulfilled iPhones and he said 2 – 3 days. I then asked him how many iPhone 3Gs they had received at his location and his response was that all AT&T stores selling them received 20 8GB and 20 16GB phones. That doesn’t sound like very many to me. I have to admit that the demand for the iPhone 3G at launch is bigger than I thought it would be. Nice marketing, Apple.
Seems a lot of people (stores included) are having issues with the Apple Store and activating the phones. Oops!
Yep, that seems to be the case: (From the AP)
A spokesman for AT&T Inc., the exclusive carrier for the iPhone in the U.S., said there was a global problem with Apple Inc.’s iTunes software that prevented the phones from being fully activated in-store, as had been planned.
Instead, employees are telling buyers to go home and perform the last step by connecting their phones to their own computers, spokesman Michael Coe said.
Um, so THAT;s why you were in such a hurry to get out of the house! LOL Oh, and you were so accomodating when I asked for a manicure and pedicure!
Considering that there’s no 3G in Lancaster and AT&T might possibly be the worst wireless company in America, I think I’ll opt for the Treo 800w when it’s sold on Sunday. But here’s what I don’t get….I’ve read reviews of the new iPhone with one of them posting the difference in data speed. The “new” speed looked to be around 400 kbps. Seriously, is that it? Where I live I usually have one bar of indicated signal strength but it’s not unusual to have DOUBLE that measly data speed. When the signal is stronger, it’s around triple that value. PLUS the fact that I have Rev-A here while the nearest 3G is Reading, PA…30 miles away, more or less. Seems to me that AT&T and Apple would have dropped the ball had there been a ball to drop. The whole thing seems kind of laughable to me. I’ll still get an iPhone. I have to, I’m a dev. But I’ll do myself a big favor and get a 1st gen off eBay and put a T-Mobile sim in it, avoiding the worst of both worlds.
I understand that this is a blog and not a news site. I also understand that you guys don’t want to be left out of the hype-da-jour web-traffic and web-chatter. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that this represents a best-we-could-come-up-with post, but you could always take a stab at journalism too:
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/press-center/releases2/g-in-the-new-3g-iphone-will
There’s not even a clear cut issue here, but at least it represents something actual to post and discuss. Cheers.
That’s hilarious TreeAmplexus, thanks for the link. It’s basically a press release that says “Apple hasn’t told us anything yet – how dare they!”.
Gotta love the ‘zeal of the zealots’…lol…
Thanks for that link. I’ll have to remember not to eat my iPhone once I get it.
At 8:15am this morning the downtown Seattle AT&T store counted the line and told everyone past that point they could stay and get a direct phone sent to the store. They were quoting 7 days. Option 2 offered was to come back tomorrow at 6 am and try again.
They know their EDGE service sucks. I can’t imagine why they thought folks living in the middle of their very first 3G hot spot wouldn’t be lined up…
You need to clear something up for me. Is a strip centre or strip mall something innocent or is it what it sounds like? If it’s the latter I can understand why your wife is upset. And what a place to sell phones at!
sounds like some kind of self-perpetuating mentality going on. people queue up because it will be short stocked, and apple spreads it think to make it short stocked.
if there is one thing one can say about apple, is that they know their marketing…
Is the whole customer service fiasco going to hurt Apple in the long run? You have to think competitors are ready to pounce.
http://hubpages.com/hub/Its-iPhone-3G-release-day-Remember-patience-is-a-virtue
I went to couple of ATT story this morning around 10.00am, and there are line outside. Talk to the sale rep, she told all iphone are sold, but they will get some in later today, but I have to come back tomorrow.
Then I went to the Apple store in the Mall, there were at least 50 people wait it line, the Apple rep told me there are plenty of Iphone, she said the wait is 3 hours, so I left. Went back at 4.00pm, the line is shorter, but the wait is down to 2 hours.
I will try to go back tomorrow..