been some pissing and moaning that iPhone purchasers who had the temerity to try to buy their new toys at AT&T cellular outlets pretty much got cold-shouldered yesterday during the launch, and of course there are reports of the Apple Corps getting all up in arms about this and pointing out how much better the “experience” would have been if you’d bought that phone at the Apple Store.
Yeah, you’re probably right. It’s not like AT&T had normal customers trying to buy normal phones and get normal customer support at the same time you wild fucks acted like the release of a phone was Star Wars 1977 all over again and that you should be served first because you were there to buy the kewl new tech. No, not at all.
So maybe next time you SHOULD go to the Apple Store.
(I’ll stick with Verizon, myself. Perfectly happy with them and have been ever since we dumped Cingular.)
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Boy are you a grump these days. Still mad about those girls being on your lawn?
If it was my lawn, I’d just put up a fence. It was my front door and I was busy working for a living at the time. The assumption that people who happen to be home when you choose to ring the doorbell actually have the time to sit and listen to what you have to say is presumptuous beyond measure, and should be put down in an age in which telecommuting is so prevelent.
In other words: Fuck ’em.
Saw your post about wanting Apple to produce an iPhoneless. Guess you don’t care for AT&T Wireless (Cingular) much either 😀
It doesn’t matter whether I care for them or not, they’re simply not an option until they put up a tower near my office. It’s the biggest problem with the iPhone IMO. I’ll have one when Verizon sells it or when I can buy it sans phone, whichever comes first.
Honestly, I’d rather they knocked on the door than called. I can peek out the window, see that it’s nothing I need concern myself with and go on with my day. When the phone rings that’s a REAL intrusion, and not one that the no-call list seems to have completely eliminated. (Nor the junk fax law, since I get them every single day.)
But see, that’s how I feel about the phone. If it rings and it’s not Sally or Mom or someone else I know I need to talk to, I let it go to the answering machine. And then if it turns out that it’s someone I need to talk to, I answer it.
I’m not ashamed of letting caller ID and the answering machine be my appointments secretary.
The problem with our front door is that it has a white curtain on it that is nearly impossible to see through. My near-term solution to that problem will be not to remove the curtain (then they could see me peeking around the side of the refrigerator), but to install a wireless camera in the doorway 🙂
Getting back to the point of this post, though, I was really simply ridiculing the people who showed up at AT&T Wireless centers apparently expecting the royal treatment just because they were there to buy an iPhone. When they didn’t get it, they whined. Well, boo hoo for them; maybe they should grow up and learn that the real world doesn’t work like the Apple World.
And I swear that had nothing to do with being pissed about the trespassers at my door who ignored my “No Soliciting” sign. I can compartmentalize my anger, you know. 🙂
If the real world worked like the Apple World people would be a good deal more satisfied. According to one of Leo Laporte’s podcasts, it was taking several times longer to check out at an AT&T store than at the Apple Stores, and when you picked up your iPhone at the Apple Store a line of Apple employees was there cheering you on and shaking your hand and telling you how much they appreciate you as a customer as you exited the store.
And THAT is why Apple gets that kind of loyalty. I recently had to prove to Microsoft yet again that I hadn’t stolen the copy of XP that’s running on my MacBook. Apple appreciates your loyalty, Microsoft keeps telling me I’m a thief.
But Jeff, that was my point. If somebody wanted the razzmatazz, he or she should have gone to the Apple Store.
Expecting that kind of thing at the AT&T store and then whining when they didn’t get it strikes me as pretty damn stupid, regardless of “loyalty”. How many of those folks were upgrading their AT&T phones, and how many were first time AT&T customers who were there strictly because of the iPhone, without any loyalty at all?
And personally I’ve never had to reactivate any MS software, so I don’t know what to tell you there. It just works for me. Maybe I’m lucky.
It normally works for me too, but I’ve reactivation problems with this particular install fairly routinely for some reason.
I think the reason people were annoyed by their treatment at AT&T is because they’re used to a particular level of service when purchasing Apple products. I understand why Apple wanted to have them in AT&T stores as well as Apple Stores (there simply aren’t enough Apple Stores to handle that kind of demand), but AT&T really should have raised their game before getting involved in Apple distribution.
It’s still a mistake to lock the thing to AT&T anyway. If Apple wanted to be truly revolutionary they’d have sold this thing unlocked, sold it exclusively through Apple and consumer electronics vendors (Best Buy, for example) and made it a combination GSM/CDMA phone (like the new Blackberry.)