Well, when the store opened again, at 6:00PM, the line moved quickly, and I was able to purchase my 8 gig phone within 15 minutes, unlike some of my friends in other states. The AT&T store in Orlando, for example, ran out of the 8 gig phones just before my friend, Mark, was to purchase his. His line of about 25 people moved slowly because AT&T's retail system went down. I have always had apprehension about Apple doing this deal with AT&T. I have never really been impressed with the company. (I'm trying to be nice.)
For example: When I went to activate my phone, through iTunes, upon completion of all of the information, the window says that AT&T will activate my account in less than 1 minute. After "a while," I got a response that reads, "Your activation requires additional time to complete." The window goes on to inform me that I will get an email when the process is finished.
At 8:48PM I got an email from the iTunes store stating that AT&T was now processing my application. Now, at 3:45AM, (yes, 7 hours later) I just called AT&T to see why the cell phone that is being replaced by my iPhone no longer works, but the iPhone is still not activated. Had I done something wrong? Of course not.
Certainly one can easily see that AT&T had absolutely no idea on earth that so many people would hit their system all at once to activate their new iPhones. This was completely unexpected. I mean, how could they have possibly anticipated this?! It has only been publicized in every conceivable form of media and highly anticipated the world over for how long now?!
AT&T's customer service stated that they could not give an estimated time my activation will be completed. Will their cell network even function with the new iPhone? Will I be able to get and receive calls? Or, after dialing a call, will I have to wait an indeterminate amount of time before the network actually puts the call through? Will they send me an email when the call is finally ringing?
...Not a good way for AT&T to begin our new working relationship with all of these Apple customers.
Leave a comment