Sunday, July 13, 2008

The much-anticipated cellular device

So I haven't posted in what seems like forever.
The Wildwood reflection is being printed in the church bulletin, but I'll post it here in the next day or so.

Waiting in line - I've never done the "wait in line all night" thing before, so when I ran into a former student-turned-allthingsmac-fanatic/expert a couple of weeks ago, it just made sense to join him and wait in line together all night for a new iPhone.

So in preparation for the iPhone purchase this past Friday (the 11th), I went to the AT&T store on Monday (the 7th) to open my AT&T account (I've been with Sprint for the last 8 years or so) and be ready for the iPhone on Friday. The sales guy was great and got it all set up (including a free 2nd line phone) and ready to go. I was in and out of the store with a new working phone in about 20 minutes.

Fast Forward to Thursday night. My buddy Jack was going to the midnight showing of "Hellboy 2" then heading over to get in line. I was going to meet up with him sometime during the night. I was going to a movie myself at 8:15, so on the way to the movie, I drove by the AT&T store to check the line. No line started yet - a good thing. On to the movie (Wall-E, very cute by the way. I liked it)

After the movie, on the way home, another drive by. This time, there were about 4 or 5 people in line, with a tent set up in a parking spot. Well, I decided to go ahead and get in line. I mean, if I'm staying up all night anyway, I might as well be closer to the front of the line. I went home, grabbed a chair, blanket, pillow, and snacks and headed back up to the store. I was 10th in line.

I texted a couple friends "hey - come by and say 'hi' if you're not busy." I was joined by Randy and Chris, who ended up staying all night and getting a phone. Jack showed up around 3:15 after taking his brother home and we settled in for the rest of the night.

Starbucks opens at 5:30, so I kept our places in line, while the others went for coffee. By this time, we were getting a big draggy, so the coffee was a welcome addition to the party. The last hour was really long (the anticipation, mixed with coffee, snapple, and no available restroom enhanced the 'longness' of the wait).

Finally, I'm in and "Sky" was helping me. He got me my white 16GB iPhone (after much deliberation, I went with white - I think it was a good choice, I like it). Now begins the real dragging....

Somehow, bringing my number over from Sprint wasn't the smooth transaction I'd hoped for. After many "activation failed" messages on the screen, along with many codes and clicks I didn't understand, Sky called tech support. They eventually got the number ported. But now, because the number I was bringing over from Sprint is an "existing" number on my account, they can't sell me the iPhone for the number. Some crazy computer glitch. Well, they finally just sold me the phone with some sort of override and after slightly more than an hour, I'm walking out of the store with my phone.

Of course, it still has to be "activated" with iTunes. "No problem" thinks I - I'll just stop by the office (no computer at home), plug in the phone, activate it (they told me it was simple), then go home and sleep.

So I plug my phone into iTunes only to discover that the newest version of iTunes (7.7) is required. It came out that morning. The new problem is that the firewall at the church prevents me from downloading the new iTunes and our computer guy is out as the office is closed on Friday. I'm thinking "I waited all night only to have to wait until Monday to activate this thing?" Creative problem solving enters.

Fortunately, Randy saved the day. He downloaded the new iTunes and burned it to a disk for me. I picked it up, returned, installed the new iTuntes, plugged in my iPhone, only to discover that the servers were overloaded and once again I couldn't activate the phone.

Home to sleep.

1 hour passes.

Chad wakes me up - "Hey! Are we still on for lunch?"
Groggily, I get up and get ready. We stop by the church on the way to lunch to try one more time. It works in about 5 minutes.

So.... finally I have a working iPhone. Only, I can't get iTunes to transfer all my phone numbers, so I have a phone with nobody's number in it. But still, it works and I can play with it (finally).

Over to lunch (Wahoo's, one of my favorites - that's why I actually got up and went out after an all-nighter). Walked by the Apple Store at Victoria Gardens and marvelled at not only the 150 people in line to get an iPhone, but also the 30+ people in line just to get in and look around. I'm not waiting in another line.

Play with the phone a bit on Friday night before falling asleep.
Get up on Saturday, back to the computer. 2 hours on the phone with customer service. We figure out that the church's firewall won't let iTunes access my phone number info. That'll have to wait until Monday when Terry gets back in.

All in all, a pretty eventful event getting this new phone. Quite a hassle.

Was it worth it?

Absolutely. I LOVE the phone.
(now if only OliveTree will put out their Bible for the iPhone...)

Rob
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