Blogg-Ed Indetermination

I’m worried that I may be getting addicted to iPhone apps. I am on to my fourth screen, and while I regularly delete ones I don’t use, there seems to be enough good ones coming along each week that the net effect is an ever expanding list of installed apps.

Two applications recently added voice functionality to my phone that I really like. Google now supports voice search. When it’s bad, it can be quite amusing, and when it’s good, you just think “wow!” The other application is Say Who, which brings voice dialing to the iPhone. I’ve used it to dial a couple of people in my contact list and it was perfect. Time will tell how well it works and if it retains a spot on my phone.

Two other favorites are really text oriented. The first is the New York Times, which is saving me from shelling our $5.00 every weekend for the Sunday Times. I’m mostly interested in the Time’s opinion columns and technology coverage. I do miss the Times Sunday magazine, but it’s a tough economy and sacrifices must be made. The other, yet to be fully tested on a plane ride, is Stanza. Stanza allows you to download copyright free books. If you’re in to classics with expired copyrights (not to mention expired authors) you’re all set. I’m currently reading Poe’s Fall of the House of Usher, and it’s not as bad as I thought it would be. Diverting when there’s nothing else hand to read and you’re not into iPhone games.

The last app I find myself using with frequency is i.TV. It will download TV and movie information for your area. Since my local cable TV station did away with its channel guide (I’m not a digital TV user), I find this to be useful when I’m looking for something worthwhile to watch and don’t want to waste time channel surfing.

I finally succumbed to my iPhone envy and purchased one this weekend at the Apple store in Palo Alto, California.

Arriving about an hour early for Sunday’s 11:00 AM opening, my wife and I found ourselves to be about thirtieth in line.

We’d seen lines at the store like this since the iPhone launch, so we were expecting this. Besides, we’re right across from a Peet’s coffee, so we knew we could take turns waiting in line and caffeinating ourselves as needed.

Apple concierges were outside handing people leaflets explaining what they’d need when we go inside, and cautioning us that 16 GB black iPhones were in short supply at their location. While in line, I took their advice and called my current carrier, Verizon, and I am glad I did. The agent at Verizon were very nice, cryptically hinted that “maybe we’ll see you back in a few months” when I mentioned my reason for changing to ATT was the iPhone, and told me that I would need my Verizon account number to complete the transaction in the Apple store, something that I had not thought to bring with me.

The doors opened at 11:00, and the I was cheered when the first person left the store 8 minutes later, new iPhone in hand. “What’s this about activation taking hours?”, I thought.

Our turn came about 11:20, and I was handed off to a nice young man who started working on our phones right away: two, 16 GB white iPhones.

We emerged from the store  2.5 hours later! Why 8 minutes for one guy, and two and a half hours for us?

A variety of reasons, it appears:

1. Problems with the handheld scanner used by the Apple employee (or user error) in scanning our credit card. It must have been scanned 50 times by this dude, while another employee was able to scan it with one try.
2. ATT and Apple servers not playing nice with each other. Registration of our first (primary) account while long (45 minutes) was ultimately successful. We were porting our exiting phone numbers. Perhaps this made it more difficulty. Who knows?
3. Registration of the second account – to put us ATT’s family plan – was a nightmare. First ATT was reporting a failed credit card – the same one they had just approved for the primary line. A call to our CC company (another 10 minutes wasted) said that they had NOT put a credit hold on the card. Back to ATT.
4. ATT claimed that it was not a problem on their end. They were reporting (now) OK on the credit card. But not Apple’s servers were disagreeing with that.
5. Apple rep suggested we try again, setting up second account as an individual account and change it ATT later. Fine – anything to get this done! Didn’t work.
6. New Apple rep comes over, suggesting registering a different phone, runs the card himself and gets green lights across the board. Second phone registered, activated, and on family plan. Yea!
7. Not done yet. Can’t add Applecare to second phone. They’ve “run out.” How in the heck to you run out of warranties? Tell me I will get a call from the store manager when they come in.
8. I ask about adding the second phone to my recently migrated .Mac account, to create a family plan. I’m told to go to the web site and upgrade the plan from individual to family. So I login to my account while at the store. No dice, and’t upgrade. Apple rep tells me to try again in a week to let the servers catch up.

In the midst of all this (just before step 2) I see an Apple exec I know shopping in the store and make small talk with him. He acknowledges that there’s been some delays with the activation. Little did I know that I’d be there for another hour and a half before I’d get out.

Am I a happy camper? Well, we have our phones and I am glad to have them. And as a person with a long respect for Apple I can forgive missteps. But this experience is not what builds market share, and are it was not an insanely great experience. It was just insane.