Still Waiting…
I did it. I bought the iPhone. I wasn’t originally going to. There are a few solid reasons why I wasn’t going to buy the iPhone but after having used it at a family get together yesterday, I was amazed by it and thought that since I’d probably be talking about it for the next few months until the next version comes out, Sherri told me to go buy it so she didn’t have to hear me say, “I should’ve bought it.”
I picked up the phone around 6pm on Saturday evening at the Westchester Mall in White Plains. The mall has a beatiful Apple Store and I was able to walk in, purchase an 8gb iPhone, pay, walk out, and leave the mall all in under 12 minutes. I feel bad for the folks who waited on 4 day lines! There was quite a few folks in the store looking to buy… Apple had planned for enough staff to be there and help s the purchasing experience was perfect.
The problem lies in activation. I believe AT&T has dropped the ball here. I’m still waiting for my iPhone to be activated. I do not know whether or not I should call AT&T as I’d probably wait on the ‘call’ line for hours. It’s been now 13 hours since I have started trying to activate and it’s been frustrating nonetheless as my phone number has been ported over and I’m not able to receive phone calls.
Knowing that I’m not alone is comforting (to a point), but for someone who spent over $600 for my phone and changed around my calling plans, I’m losing patience by the hour.
From a brand marketing perspective, Apple did extremely well for the iPhone transaction portion, but may suffer a little bit from AT&T’s snafu. There are many solid reasons why you partner with companies in business, but when you do partner, at the end of the day, you are putting a lot of weight on your partner… and they may or may not pull through. We’re seeing a partnership having a few issues – maybe more than a few – and Apple may ultimately suffer a bit from this. I’d like to watch Apple’s stock price on Monday. AT&T will issue a press release – almost certain.
Did I mention that I’m still waiting?