I’m too impatient for standing in line all day. I’m not one of those dorks. Yes, I got the iPhone last year on the day it came out, but I spent 20 minutes at an ATT store before they said they sold out and then 5 minutes in the Apple Store. It was as easy as running into a 7-11 to buy a six pack.
Yesterday I came over and had coffee before going to work at the Starbucks next to the Domain Apple Store. An hour before opening at least 100 people in line. When the store opened and I left for work, they wrapped around the corner. While at the office I was monitoring what was going on on the geek sites. ATT and Apple pointing fingers at each other over why the activations were taking over an hour. I returned home and swung by the Domain again and the line was huge. They moved it over to the shaded part of the street so people wouldn’t die from the heat. But it was moving slow. What suckers. I’d never do that.
There was a huge line at Tacodeli so I decided to try Gabbi’s Hamburgers in the same strip center. Damn fine burger. I had a jalapeño cheeseburger that was yummy. The peppers made up for the lack of Tacodeli salsa. I went back home and worked for a while still monitoring the reports from the internets about the lines and the IT problems.
About two I went over there to see the line and was going to work from the Starbucks. It looked like the line had gotten smaller so I jumped into line in from the White House:Black Market store and it quickly got to the Puma store. The sun was hot and the fake awnings didn’t help. Security moved back across the street for the shade. So I was in front of Victoria’s Secret for a long time. Each time I would say I’m leaving the line inched forward. So I kept giving myself 15 minutes before leaving. Most of this time I had my computer out and was checking emails from work and answering queries as if I were at my desk (my arm is sore today from holding the computer all this time). At the two hour mark I realized I wasn’t going home without an iPhone. And I was in front of Ruehl which is right next door to the Apple store. There were people from Sweet Leaf Tea with free bottles of tea and lemonade. And two hotties from Red Bull came by. Starbucks was giving away coffee drinks. And the Apple Store staff were handing out bottles of water. luxe apothetique was giving out some sort of shampoo or skin cream samples.
What wasn’t apparent was getting into the Apple Store wasn’t the problem. Once inside the store, there was air conditioning and a lot of Macs to play with. But there was a two hour wait as the queue meandered through the store like a cattle pen. It went slow. I ran into my old boss when I got inside as she was leaving for a smoke break (they let you leave to go to the bathroom, get a smoke or drink). My ex-boss had been there since 9am and still ad an hour to go (there were no signs like at the airport or amusement park saying “you have x minutes from this point we used other people in line. The woman behind me went next door to buy an outfit at Banana Republic because she realized she was not going to make it back downtown to change for a funeral viewing in Georgetown. The line moved maybe 5 feet while she was gone.
A guy that always helps me when I’m buying my Apple stuff was going through the line asking which people wanted what (8 or 16, a black or white 16). If they were going to run out, it would be 16gb black ones. The first few counts he’d go outside and get a count then he’d just stay in. I might not get the 16gb black one I wanted! But at point went I was halfway though the store he said that pretty much anyone currently in the store could have their choices of black or white and they had plenty of 8gb. So I was safe. But I had just had a chance to play with the white and black phones and was thinking I’d get a white one. I kept switching my choice back and forth until the end.
As we got closer to the back of the store where all the action was, you can tell that many people talking to the Apple staff didn’t know what they wanted. Many were on their phones with ATT or their carrier or their parents or other people. Some people spent over an hour back there — if you were an ATT customer but not eligible for an upgrade you had to pay more (or argue with the ATT people to relent). And even though the store staff had sheets of paper with the required items (photo ID, your SSN, your other phone company account number if applicable, and a credit card — no cash sales) people still were up at the front without the stuff. Many younger people were on the phone with their parents and the phone companies (if you’re not the account holder, you can’t add a phone to your line). It was a mess.
But for me, a current ATT customer who had an iPhone and didn’t have a family plan or multiple phones, it was a breeze. I went to the counter, the guy asked me what phone/sms plan I wanted. Asked to see my ID and the last 4 of my SSN. Had me sign his little POS screen saying I accepted ATT’s T&Cs. He swiped my credit card and had me sign the POS handheld again. He emailed the receipt (which I got a minute later in the store on my old iphone) and walked me to a ‘genius’ that would complete the activation. It takes a few seconds for the iPhone to power on. The genius plugged it into his version of iTunes. It activated in a second. He unplugged it and said that I should see the ATT logo on the phone in 30 seconds or so. I could wait, or take off. I waited for the logo. If I had a dud phone I would have hated to have to return it the next day. The geniuses can help you set up your email and other features of the phone for people new to the iphone/Apple experience. I took my iPhone home and plugged it into my Mac and it started copying my music, the new Apps I downloaded for my old phone, and my email and address book settings.
Was it worth it? No. This isn’t an artificial heart or other device necessary for me to live. My old iPhone was (is) great and has the latest software. It didn’t have the larger storage for more music, apps and Pr0n. it didn’t have a GPS chip so it relied on the triangulation/wifi method which gets you in the ballpark of where you are. It didn’t have 3G. The slower EDGE network is painfully slow especially in a world where I have 15MB cable at home and a superfast connection at work. Sure, the iPhone has wifi and almost everywhere I go will have one — if not more — wifi hotspots nearby. But at work I can’t use the wireless because it is an “unauthorized device” so updating and goofing off in meetings and while waiting for my Windows XP machine to reboot is painfully slow.
You form a camaraderie with the people in line around you. We all had this realization that we were there for the duration at the same point. We all had first gen iPhones. The woman behind me had gotten hers wet and killed it a few weeks ago and was sick of the loaner Blackberry she had to use until the new iPhone came out. The new iPhone people around me all were going for the 8Gb. Most of them were waiting from last year for the 3G and for their contracts on other carriers to expire. Most of the people in my section were in the tech industry. There were older people and younger people. Many ethnicities. Many levels of Mac-fanboyism and savvy. But of course, when were called to the counter, we said our good luck and goodbyes and will never see each other again. Sad, because the woman behind me was cute, Irish and worked at Google. Dammit. But we all agreed that none of us would do this again.
I’m confident Apple will ensure the cockups that happened yesterday (and from the slow line outside the Apple Store today with this whole product launch) won’t happen again. The Apple Store staff were great. When I was outside in front of the line an Apple employee asked if I needed anything (meaning the ATT brochure on rateplans or questions about the phone) but I said I’d like a cold beer. He said he couldn’t do that, but he’d get me some water. When my battery was dying inside the store, a staffer was going to find a charger for me until we decided the just unplug an iPod touch for its juice. Great job by everyone. But trying to make the Apple staff cellphone calling plan experts and all of the various carriers, discounts, exclusions really was too much. I wished they had an express lane for people without complications like me. The reason I had to wait so long was because of all the other people in front of me with complications in their rate plans, carriers, etc.
So I’ve been playing with the phone for a while last night and this morning and here is my review:
It, like its predecessor kicks ass. 3G web pages or mailing photos to Flickr happens mucho faster. The GPS works well outside. The Google Maps App has been updated and actually has gotten better at triangulating — where you are with cell towers. And on the bus on Thursday it actually will try and lock you to a road and keep track of you like a poor man’s GPS. The GPS chip gets you within a few meters of where you’re standing). But the best part is how many Apps in the App Store are location aware. To find a Bank of America ATM you don’t need to know the zip code of where you are. The Yelp and Urbanspoon Apps can help you find a restaurant from where you are (Urban Spoon has a slot machine like interface where you shake the iPhone and it will pick a place for you to eat). Frasier Spears, the guy who made the excellent Flickr Export for iPhoto has an App that makes seeing Flickr photostreams (yours, your contacts, or random) much better than the mobile web version of Flickr. The coolest feature is you can find pics geotagged near you — this only works with people that place their image on the map in Flickr or are geocoded with their digital camera at upload. Too bad the iPhone camera itself is so 1999.
The only negative I’ve found is really thanks to our old friend AT&T. The 3G signal at my house is one bar so the superior voice quality and fast interwebs can be spotty. At Tacodeli I had 5 bars and that’s only about half a mile away. Here at the Domain, it switches over to old-school GSM and EDGE. I hope I get 3G at my office. ATT just put up a tower in April nearby and I hope it also had a 3G on it.
The only negative about the device itself is the back shows fingprint smudges a lot worse than my old iPhone. Smudges were only a problem on the glass front of the old one. When it is clean, the back (I got a black one) is beautiful, but the plastic looks like it will scratch easily. I’m still looking for the “perfect” cover to protect it. I keep it in my first gen iPod case (yes, the original iPod came with a nice case) when I put it in my bag.
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