Found out, the hard way, that if you have any sort of corporate discount with AT&T (as many individuals do), Apple CANNOT upgrade your account and you must go to AT&T. Of course, the big problem was that AT&T hardly had any phones and sold out after about 40 people in line...
Serves Apple right for the decision to have only in-store activation! I'm sure they won't be doing that again! Don't be so strick Apple, it will only bite you in the ass.
I can almost guarantee you this in-store activation junk is AT&T's doing, not Apple's. AT&T continues to be the worst partner Apple has ever had.
I can almost guarantee you this in-store activation junk is AT&T's doing, not Apple's. AT&T continues to be the worst partner Apple has ever had.
But in this case, it seems the AT&T end of things - credit check, account, phone number - worked out fine in most places. There were some early reports of hiccups but nothing since 8:30am on the east coast.
The issue is with the Apple iTunes servers activating iPhones for both new owners and upgraders, which I don't think AT&T demanded to have done in-store. Apple called this untethering; this process that can be done from home and Apple did send people home with their new iPhones to do this in many cases. Now we don't know if the iTunes servers were simply overloaded, or if they were having trouble getting the necessary info from the AT&T servers, but since I don't think the upgraders had to go back to AT&T, I'd think this was mostly an Apple problem (even if it was a DOS attack).
I have no interest in defending AT&T, and I like Apple, but I really think this mess was an Apple problem.
Did anyone not expect this?! What were they thinking with the in store activation non-sense. The iPhone has been sold out for months, and all the pint up demand from people who haven't been able to get one + the people who've been waiting for a 3G + the early adopters who now want a new phone are all hitting at once. Everywhere I've been has had lines extending out the mall. They should have just sold it like the first one, allowed people to activate the phone at home and charged people's credit cards the full price of the phone if they don't activate within 10 days. Those who had cash could be the only ones requiring in store activation. What would have been so hard about that? They could have saved a lot of people many hours in line, even with server problems, at least people could have dealt with them later from home instead of at the store. I was hoping to get a 3G phone today because I already sold my 2G one, but no way I'm dealing with all this non-sense. Hopefully things will return to normal soon.
As a precautionary I double checked with an AT&T Mobility mgr in person on Thursday because I am on a family plan with my wife and it's in her name. He told me I would have no problem upgrading to the new iPhone on Friday.
Sure enough I had no problem when I bought mine at the Apple Store at Millenia in Orlando, FL. Just gave my phone number and the last 4-digits of her SS#. They made no announcement about the primary user of the family plan having to be present.
Not sure if I was an existing iPhone user or what but I had not prob's.
But in this case, it seems the AT&T end of things - credit check, account, phone number - worked out fine in most places. There were some early reports of hiccups but nothing since 8:30am on the east coast.
The issue is with the Apple iTunes servers activating iPhones for both new owners and upgraders, which I don't think AT&T demanded to have done in-store. Apple called this untethering; this process that can be done from home and Apple did send people home with their new iPhones to do this in many cases. Now we don't know if the iTunes servers were simply overloaded, or if they were having trouble getting the necessary info from the AT&T servers, but since I don't think the upgraders had to go back to AT&T, I'd think this was mostly an Apple problem (even if it was a DOS attack).
I have no interest in defending AT&T, and I like Apple, but I really think this mess was an Apple problem.
It really depends on who was insisting on the in-store iTunes activation. IMHO, this was mostly Apple's servers getting bogged down ... sending people home to activate in the first place would've lessened this issue considerably. Since it appears Apple wrote the software for at-home activation, I'd tend to think it was AT&T who wanted to do this in-store BS.
I may have related that when I was in Vegas at the end of April, my iPhone was either lost or stolen. I had the option of buying a new one to replace it or waiting for the new model to come out. Well, I thought that I had that option, but all the Apple stores in Vegas were out of stock of the phone, and it didn't even occur to me to check with the AT&T stores.
By the time I got back home, I had pretty much decided to wait until the new phone would be released; I was hoping that Jobs would announce immediate availability when he gave the keynote speech at Apple's World Wide Developer Conference on Jun 9th, but as you all know (unless you were living in a cave), the release date was today. (BTW, my homeowner's insurance reimbursed me for the replacement cost of the phone, including sales tax, minus a $100 deductible.)
I set my alarm for 5 am, figuring to leave the house at six to get on line at the store for the 8 am opening. Because I had got up at four yesterday morning for my run, I wound up napping during the day, and as a result, I woke up at 2 am this morning, and couldn't fall back to sleep. I killed as much time as I could, but when I got too bored with just sitting around, I took off for the store, arriving there at about 5:40 am. That put me 21st in line, outside the mall entrance. I found out that if I had arrived fifteen minutes sooner, I would have been first. After waiting for five minutes, they opened the mall, and we went inside, to wait on line indoors. There were about 25 of us by then.
Almost as soon as we had settled in place, Apple employees came by, distributing bottles of water. And during the next two hours, they served more water, coffee, cookies, and breakfast pastries as well as literature about the phone and service plans.
By the time the store opened at 8 am, the line extended almost all the way back to the mall entrance; I'd guess there were eighty to 100 people on line. When they opened the store, they allowed us in, in groups of twenty. So I was the first person in the second group.
Things were fairly well organized; as we waited for an available salesperson, another one reviewed the phone options and service plans available. I already knew what I wanted, so the review was pro forma in my case, and probably for almost everyone else there as well.
I told the salesperson that I wanted an eight gig model; if I had wanted a sixteen gig, I would have had a choice between a white or black back on the phone; the eight gig comes only in black, which is what I wanted anyway. I also told him my name, my AT&T phone number, and the last four digits of my social security number. There was a glitch in connecting with the AT&T servers because of the volume of contacts, but eventually he got through. Then the second glitch happened; my account was inactive, because I had reported the phone lost or stolen. He had to make a voice call to AT&T to reactivate the account. After that, it was smooth sailing; he connected the phone to a Mac, ran iTunes, and activated the phone itself.
All told, it took me about 45 minutes from the time they opened the store until I was out of there with the new iPhone.
So far, it works great, with the added bells and whistles that the new OS and hardware offer, but I haven't had a chance to check out the 3G service yet because it connects via my WiFi router when I'm in the house.
They should have just sold it like the first one, allowed people to activate the phone at home and charged people's credit cards the full price of the phone if they don't activate within 10 days. Those who had cash could be the only ones requiring in store activation. What would have been so hard about that?
Well, it would certainly be harder than a hacker canceling a credit card before those 10 days were up. Do you think it would never occur to anyone to do that?
Such a pathetic, luddite process from a forward-thinking company like Apple. Really disappointing to read about all the hassles. Also, I am surprised that Apple couldn't figure out a way to authenticate a person's identity online.
I think I'll stick with my iPhone V1 for now, until it is all sorted out.
Drove past an AT&T store at 10:15 this morning and saw about 25 lined up outside the store. I planned to skip the morning rush and beat the night rush by hitting the one Apple Store in town around 3:00. I arrived at 3:40 to find a very long line in the mall attended by a number of orange shirted Apple employees who were just standing around casually chatting up the customers. I hadn't heard about the problems until talking to an employee that I know. He reported that the wait was in the 2+ hour range, though had been as long as 5 hours earlier in the day. He seemed pretty sure that phones would not be in short supply which was good news to one guy in line. He'd been 21st in line at a suburban AT&T store only to find out that they had only 20 phones in stock. He was clearly in line and determined to get a phone *today*.
I'll get a phone when there's little to no line; perhaps before midnight tonight or sometime this weekend.
I just got back from buying my iPhone and here was my experience.
I started out at a local AT&T store in Nashua around 6 AM. They were claiming they had 250 iPhones in stock. When the doors opened at 8 AM, they revealed they had 25. Being further back than 25th in line, I headed for the Apple Store in Salem, NH.
By 9:15 AM, I was in line. They announced about an hour later that they had over 600 iPhones in stock and that everyone in line would definitely get one. But there were problems, and it was very clear. They announced AT&T's servers were crashing and that they were unable to get people through the credit check or activate phones. Apparently they fixed the credit checks but not phone activation. After long delays where no one was entering the store, I finally got in around 1:30 PM.
The first thing they told me was that getting pre-approved at an AT&T store with a credit check was basically pointless. They needed to do the credit check again regardless of my reference number. I was able to get through this fine but didn't like the fact that they were sending all of my personal information and my social security number over the air. Then I was told that they were not accepting cash for the iPhone. This confused the heck out of me but I was able to buy a gift card. They told me to get a gift card for $335 ($299 for the 16 GB iPhone, $36 activation fee).
When I went to pay, the only thing that rang up was the iPhone so I had $36 sitting on my gift card unused. Instead of asking for the cash back, I decided to buy a case for the iPhone. There wasn't a large selection at this point and I ended up spending $30 on the case. I think it will be good for now.
After I got home, I synced the iPhone and transferred the apps I had downloaded from the App Store. The phone seems to be working great so I'm happy about that. A long day but this is something I've been looking forward to for a while so I'm glad I went ahead, stood in line, and got the new iPhone.
Side note: while AT&T stores are using a modified iTunes activation application, the version of iTunes used to activate our new iPhone 3Gs appeared to be a standard distribution. Unless Apple's iTunes servers are specifically checking for activation requests coming from Apple-owned networks and IPs, there seems to be no reason why the actual activation could not be completed at home.
Here in the UK, the 8GB model I picked up from Carphone Warehouse in the UK was handed over, still in wrapper, to take home and activate. I was upgrading from an existing iPhone contract and I guess once I'd signed up to the new plan, confirmed in store, they didn't care where I actually finished the process with iTunes. One less formality to carry out in-store...
I did report it, actually... And recently got this reponse from the exec. director of media relations:
I am truly sorry you had this problem. We have been very clear that the phone is available strictly on a first-come, first served basis. That is only fair. There is no ?exclusive waiting list? that would give people priority. We will look into this. Again, my apologies.
I guess we'll see if this actually does anything.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfneuralnet
Of course this "manager" was selling places in the line. Not surprised since its NYC (the home of shady electronic deals...)
However, this is not in line with company practice, and you should absolutely report the incident.
It really takes the fun out of it when they don't play by the rules, and you should take the 5 minutes to stop it from happening during iPhone 3.0
This is unbelievable. Why could they not have a website where you can sign up for a contract and then order your phone online? There is absolutely no reason for this that I can tell other than AT&T is paranoid. I hope forcing customers to purchase a phone in-store really hurts their sales, this is just dumb. What about those of us who live far away from an apple or AT&T store? We have to drive 30+ miles to get a damn phone? For as smart as Apple is with creating amazing products, I can't believe they can be this dumb when it comes to actually selling them. I am seriously considering not buying one if I'm forced to drive to the damn store. What a hoax.
I was able to purchase an iPhone today in an AT&T store, but they were long sold out of product. I will contacted when my handset arrives within my place in the queue. I wasn't expecting them to do that. However, I must go into the store to pick it up.
This is their currently policy as they can't check ID on the internet and therefore be unable to correctly verify who is eligible and ineligible. They are obviously trying subdue any grey market iPhones sales that happened with the original iPhone from the US. Whether you like the arrangement or not (I certainly don't) you can't argue that it is a result of our actions from last year.
So has anybody with a corporate discount on their account (it would have been inactive if you had a previous-generation iPhone) tried making a purchase through the Apple Store? I know it has been said that these customers need to go to AT&T but I was wondering if Apple was able to activate them anyway. It was nice to discover that I'll be able to get a corporate discount with the 3G and that would be sufficient to offset the additional costs of the new service.
Of course the AT&T stores are out of the iPhone -- Apple Stores have a number left. Also, I have an Apple gift card I would love to use. Walking into AT&T stores makes me feel dirty and used. \
Serves Apple right for the decision to have only in-store activation! I'm sure they won't be doing that again! Don't be so strick Apple, it will only bite you in the ass.
Thanks for clearing that up. You saved everyone hours of confusion trying to figure out what was meant.
My intention was not to be patronizing. Located right at the beginning of the article the grammar error can be rather glaring and unprofessional, and I wasn't sure if that was something AI cared about or not.
Anyone foolish enough nowadays to go into a store with a big wad of cash to buy a multi-hundred dollar item (or almost anything more than $10), is living in the past. Why would anyone other than a drug dealer, pimp, or iPhone re-seller want to pay in cash? You have to give your credit card number to access iTunes anyway, and you have to give your SIN number to get a contract for the phone.
I bet these cash purchasers also wear those old fashioned "watches" on their wrists, and listen to "radios" as well.
BTW - connecting to iTunes has always been part of the process. The only different part is the fact that they now make you do it in the store.
(which I agree is an unnecessary and stupid addition).
CA$H is KING!! Although i do quite a bit with the debit card, i still like my CA$H.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Foo2
Makes me glad I upgraded to 2.0 yesterday. The App Store alone is worth the wait though. Just wish it had more utilities for geeks.
I wonder who mandated the phones be activated in store? I feel that was more AT&T than Apple.
If you remember the original keynote, one of Steve's selling points was that the entire activation process would take place in the comfort of your home.
So, I feel as if AT&T mandated this whole ordeal, which turned out bonkers.
But also, I feel the entire mood was crap today. Remember iPhone 1.0? Everyone was happy, in and out, cheering, showing off there iPhone bags. This whole procedure was just about as fun as getting an aspirin caught in your throat.
Comments
Serves Apple right for the decision to have only in-store activation! I'm sure they won't be doing that again! Don't be so strick Apple, it will only bite you in the ass.
I can almost guarantee you this in-store activation junk is AT&T's doing, not Apple's. AT&T continues to be the worst partner Apple has ever had.
I can almost guarantee you this in-store activation junk is AT&T's doing, not Apple's. AT&T continues to be the worst partner Apple has ever had.
But in this case, it seems the AT&T end of things - credit check, account, phone number - worked out fine in most places. There were some early reports of hiccups but nothing since 8:30am on the east coast.
The issue is with the Apple iTunes servers activating iPhones for both new owners and upgraders, which I don't think AT&T demanded to have done in-store. Apple called this untethering; this process that can be done from home and Apple did send people home with their new iPhones to do this in many cases. Now we don't know if the iTunes servers were simply overloaded, or if they were having trouble getting the necessary info from the AT&T servers, but since I don't think the upgraders had to go back to AT&T, I'd think this was mostly an Apple problem (even if it was a DOS attack).
I have no interest in defending AT&T, and I like Apple, but I really think this mess was an Apple problem.
Sure enough I had no problem when I bought mine at the Apple Store at Millenia in Orlando, FL. Just gave my phone number and the last 4-digits of her SS#. They made no announcement about the primary user of the family plan having to be present.
Not sure if I was an existing iPhone user or what but I had not prob's.
Customers should simply be able to activate it at home. It's lame enough that people who really want the iPhone have no choice in mobile carriers.
Lame? Please tell me which cell phone carriers will allow you to buy subsidized phone and use it on a competitor's network?
I'll wait.
As for home activation, it's still possible. I just did it.
Apple went to in-store activation because of the hackers who were unlocking phones to use on other networks. It wasn't their first choice.
But in this case, it seems the AT&T end of things - credit check, account, phone number - worked out fine in most places. There were some early reports of hiccups but nothing since 8:30am on the east coast.
The issue is with the Apple iTunes servers activating iPhones for both new owners and upgraders, which I don't think AT&T demanded to have done in-store. Apple called this untethering; this process that can be done from home and Apple did send people home with their new iPhones to do this in many cases. Now we don't know if the iTunes servers were simply overloaded, or if they were having trouble getting the necessary info from the AT&T servers, but since I don't think the upgraders had to go back to AT&T, I'd think this was mostly an Apple problem (even if it was a DOS attack).
I have no interest in defending AT&T, and I like Apple, but I really think this mess was an Apple problem.
It really depends on who was insisting on the in-store iTunes activation. IMHO, this was mostly Apple's servers getting bogged down ... sending people home to activate in the first place would've lessened this issue considerably. Since it appears Apple wrote the software for at-home activation, I'd tend to think it was AT&T who wanted to do this in-store BS.
By the time I got back home, I had pretty much decided to wait until the new phone would be released; I was hoping that Jobs would announce immediate availability when he gave the keynote speech at Apple's World Wide Developer Conference on Jun 9th, but as you all know (unless you were living in a cave), the release date was today. (BTW, my homeowner's insurance reimbursed me for the replacement cost of the phone, including sales tax, minus a $100 deductible.)
I set my alarm for 5 am, figuring to leave the house at six to get on line at the store for the 8 am opening. Because I had got up at four yesterday morning for my run, I wound up napping during the day, and as a result, I woke up at 2 am this morning, and couldn't fall back to sleep. I killed as much time as I could, but when I got too bored with just sitting around, I took off for the store, arriving there at about 5:40 am. That put me 21st in line, outside the mall entrance. I found out that if I had arrived fifteen minutes sooner, I would have been first. After waiting for five minutes, they opened the mall, and we went inside, to wait on line indoors. There were about 25 of us by then.
Almost as soon as we had settled in place, Apple employees came by, distributing bottles of water. And during the next two hours, they served more water, coffee, cookies, and breakfast pastries as well as literature about the phone and service plans.
By the time the store opened at 8 am, the line extended almost all the way back to the mall entrance; I'd guess there were eighty to 100 people on line. When they opened the store, they allowed us in, in groups of twenty. So I was the first person in the second group.
Things were fairly well organized; as we waited for an available salesperson, another one reviewed the phone options and service plans available. I already knew what I wanted, so the review was pro forma in my case, and probably for almost everyone else there as well.
I told the salesperson that I wanted an eight gig model; if I had wanted a sixteen gig, I would have had a choice between a white or black back on the phone; the eight gig comes only in black, which is what I wanted anyway. I also told him my name, my AT&T phone number, and the last four digits of my social security number. There was a glitch in connecting with the AT&T servers because of the volume of contacts, but eventually he got through. Then the second glitch happened; my account was inactive, because I had reported the phone lost or stolen. He had to make a voice call to AT&T to reactivate the account. After that, it was smooth sailing; he connected the phone to a Mac, ran iTunes, and activated the phone itself.
All told, it took me about 45 minutes from the time they opened the store until I was out of there with the new iPhone.
So far, it works great, with the added bells and whistles that the new OS and hardware offer, but I haven't had a chance to check out the 3G service yet because it connects via my WiFi router when I'm in the house.
They should have just sold it like the first one, allowed people to activate the phone at home and charged people's credit cards the full price of the phone if they don't activate within 10 days. Those who had cash could be the only ones requiring in store activation. What would have been so hard about that?
Well, it would certainly be harder than a hacker canceling a credit card before those 10 days were up. Do you think it would never occur to anyone to do that?
I think I'll stick with my iPhone V1 for now, until it is all sorted out.
Drove past an AT&T store at 10:15 this morning and saw about 25 lined up outside the store. I planned to skip the morning rush and beat the night rush by hitting the one Apple Store in town around 3:00. I arrived at 3:40 to find a very long line in the mall attended by a number of orange shirted Apple employees who were just standing around casually chatting up the customers. I hadn't heard about the problems until talking to an employee that I know. He reported that the wait was in the 2+ hour range, though had been as long as 5 hours earlier in the day. He seemed pretty sure that phones would not be in short supply which was good news to one guy in line. He'd been 21st in line at a suburban AT&T store only to find out that they had only 20 phones in stock. He was clearly in line and determined to get a phone *today*.
I'll get a phone when there's little to no line; perhaps before midnight tonight or sometime this weekend.
gc
I started out at a local AT&T store in Nashua around 6 AM. They were claiming they had 250 iPhones in stock. When the doors opened at 8 AM, they revealed they had 25. Being further back than 25th in line, I headed for the Apple Store in Salem, NH.
By 9:15 AM, I was in line. They announced about an hour later that they had over 600 iPhones in stock and that everyone in line would definitely get one. But there were problems, and it was very clear. They announced AT&T's servers were crashing and that they were unable to get people through the credit check or activate phones. Apparently they fixed the credit checks but not phone activation. After long delays where no one was entering the store, I finally got in around 1:30 PM.
The first thing they told me was that getting pre-approved at an AT&T store with a credit check was basically pointless. They needed to do the credit check again regardless of my reference number. I was able to get through this fine but didn't like the fact that they were sending all of my personal information and my social security number over the air. Then I was told that they were not accepting cash for the iPhone. This confused the heck out of me but I was able to buy a gift card. They told me to get a gift card for $335 ($299 for the 16 GB iPhone, $36 activation fee).
When I went to pay, the only thing that rang up was the iPhone so I had $36 sitting on my gift card unused. Instead of asking for the cash back, I decided to buy a case for the iPhone. There wasn't a large selection at this point and I ended up spending $30 on the case. I think it will be good for now.
After I got home, I synced the iPhone and transferred the apps I had downloaded from the App Store. The phone seems to be working great so I'm happy about that. A long day but this is something I've been looking forward to for a while so I'm glad I went ahead, stood in line, and got the new iPhone.
Side note: while AT&T stores are using a modified iTunes activation application, the version of iTunes used to activate our new iPhone 3Gs appeared to be a standard distribution. Unless Apple's iTunes servers are specifically checking for activation requests coming from Apple-owned networks and IPs, there seems to be no reason why the actual activation could not be completed at home.
Here in the UK, the 8GB model I picked up from Carphone Warehouse in the UK was handed over, still in wrapper, to take home and activate. I was upgrading from an existing iPhone contract and I guess once I'd signed up to the new plan, confirmed in store, they didn't care where I actually finished the process with iTunes. One less formality to carry out in-store...
I am truly sorry you had this problem. We have been very clear that the phone is available strictly on a first-come, first served basis. That is only fair. There is no ?exclusive waiting list? that would give people priority. We will look into this. Again, my apologies.
I guess we'll see if this actually does anything.
Of course this "manager" was selling places in the line. Not surprised since its NYC (the home of shady electronic deals...)
However, this is not in line with company practice, and you should absolutely report the incident.
It really takes the fun out of it when they don't play by the rules, and you should take the 5 minutes to stop it from happening during iPhone 3.0
This is unbelievable. Why could they not have a website where you can sign up for a contract and then order your phone online? There is absolutely no reason for this that I can tell other than AT&T is paranoid. I hope forcing customers to purchase a phone in-store really hurts their sales, this is just dumb. What about those of us who live far away from an apple or AT&T store? We have to drive 30+ miles to get a damn phone? For as smart as Apple is with creating amazing products, I can't believe they can be this dumb when it comes to actually selling them. I am seriously considering not buying one if I'm forced to drive to the damn store. What a hoax.
I was able to purchase an iPhone today in an AT&T store, but they were long sold out of product. I will contacted when my handset arrives within my place in the queue. I wasn't expecting them to do that. However, I must go into the store to pick it up.
This is their currently policy as they can't check ID on the internet and therefore be unable to correctly verify who is eligible and ineligible. They are obviously trying subdue any grey market iPhones sales that happened with the original iPhone from the US. Whether you like the arrangement or not (I certainly don't) you can't argue that it is a result of our actions from last year.
Of course the AT&T stores are out of the iPhone -- Apple Stores have a number left. Also, I have an Apple gift card I would love to use. Walking into AT&T stores makes me feel dirty and used.
Serves Apple right for the decision to have only in-store activation! I'm sure they won't be doing that again! Don't be so strick Apple, it will only bite you in the ass.
you mean "strict"
word
Thanks for clearing that up. You saved everyone hours of confusion trying to figure out what was meant.
My intention was not to be patronizing. Located right at the beginning of the article the grammar error can be rather glaring and unprofessional, and I wasn't sure if that was something AI cared about or not.
Anyone foolish enough nowadays to go into a store with a big wad of cash to buy a multi-hundred dollar item (or almost anything more than $10), is living in the past. Why would anyone other than a drug dealer, pimp, or iPhone re-seller want to pay in cash? You have to give your credit card number to access iTunes anyway, and you have to give your SIN number to get a contract for the phone.
I bet these cash purchasers also wear those old fashioned "watches" on their wrists, and listen to "radios" as well.
BTW - connecting to iTunes has always been part of the process. The only different part is the fact that they now make you do it in the store.
(which I agree is an unnecessary and stupid addition).
CA$H is KING!! Although i do quite a bit with the debit card, i still like my CA$H.
Makes me glad I upgraded to 2.0 yesterday. The App Store alone is worth the wait though. Just wish it had more utilities for geeks.
SAME HERE!!
If you remember the original keynote, one of Steve's selling points was that the entire activation process would take place in the comfort of your home.
So, I feel as if AT&T mandated this whole ordeal, which turned out bonkers.
But also, I feel the entire mood was crap today. Remember iPhone 1.0? Everyone was happy, in and out, cheering, showing off there iPhone bags. This whole procedure was just about as fun as getting an aspirin caught in your throat.