I Can Has iPhone?
Jun. 29th, 2007 11:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eggwardsYes, I am that person. I waited a few hours, and picked up...an iPhone.
Anyone who knows me knows I'm a big Apple fan, and I certainly was looking forward to picking up the new phone. I even held off replacing my 3 and a half year old phone for months waiting for this day to arrive. My old phone barely holds a charge anymore.
Well, it's also an Apple gadget. As someone who bought the first 5GB iPod the first week it was on sale, I'm willing to be the guy who buys a first generation product from the company from Cupertino - and to pay the high retail price to do so.
I got up at 4:30am and went into work extra early this morning, shocking the earlybird group. I kept up with the Mac forums that were relaying the steadily rising crowds at the Apple stores. I was getting worried that I wouldn't be able to get a phone since I couldn't get off until 3:30 and would take another 30 minutes to drive to my chosen AT&T store.
I didn't want to join in the craziness of the Apple stores. The Apple Stores were selling 2 phones per person while the AT&T would only let you get one, so I thought I'd have a much better chance there.
I drive down to the AT&T store that I scoped out a week ago. They couldn't give me any information then of how everything would go down. When I got there there was a line that was already going around one side of the free-standing building. Many people had brought collapsable chairs and were shooting the breeze. I had been told the people in the front of the line camped out overnight for their spot. They had brought a party tent with them.
There were about 40 of us in line. I got there at 4:00 and the line slowly continued to build. Plenty of people drove by to see what it was all about. People were good natured, and allowed people to run over to Starbucks to get refreshments and use the restroom without screaming at their getting out of line.
In front of me was one guy who was getting paid $200 by a company to buy a phone. his boss was mightily upset that it was one phone per person, so he called to have some other guys stand in line as well. I'm hoping that no one feels the need to buy these phones on Ebay. It just isn't worth paying more than it already costs! The stand-in was good to look at though. Cute and cubby, but wearing a Christian Tee.
Also in front of me was Justin and his mother. Justin is 12, and said he had been saving for a year for this. Justin was loud, obnoxious and lacking in manners, as you might expect from a 12 year old waiting in a line for 4 hours. He seemed ready to call all of his freinds and gloat that he was getting an iPhone (much like I am by writing to my LJ about it, no?). He did seem rather mad at the AT&T folks that they couldn't just open up for him and get it all done with now.
Justin was mad when I told him he'd have to take it home and sync it with his computer, and add all his phone contacts before he could actually use the phone. He wanted to open it up then and there, drop in the SIM card from his own phone and have instant gloatification. He started begging his mom for them to go home instead of a planned trip to their lakehouse, or he wouldn't get to use the phone all weekend. knowing what us line folks know of Justin's mom, he'll likely get his way.
No one else in line seemed to have a problem with the unusual setup, or having to wait in the well-mannered group. No problems, no dustups about place or anything. The AT&T people seemed to be a little grouchy about not being able to buy a phone themselves as several of them mentioned this, but they handled things very orderly.
Thirty minutes before sales were to start, people took their chairs back to their cars and the AT&T people took down our names for the line order, along with information about our wireless plan and phone number we wished to transfer to make it go faster. At six they took the first seven buyers in, as that was all the stations they had available. it took about 15 minutes for the first person to come out with their newly purchased sale.
Justin became more and more revved up as we slowly moved towards our destination. He was calling people on his old phone telling them loudly that he was getting an iPhone, all the time worried that there would not be enough stock. I told him, "they are just going to tell us thanks for standing in the iQueue, there are no iPhones, it was all an experiment to see how gullible you people are." His mom appreciated the humor, but not him.
When he finally went in, those of us near him gave a sigh of relief. I confirmed with a few others that they thought allowing a 12 year old, who had just dropped his old phone on the ground before us, to get at $600 phone was pretty silly. We give his phone 6 months, tops.
When I entered the store, it finally started to rain, hard. it had been threatening for some time, and we've had rain everyday for weeks now. Thunder and lightning and all. I was glad to be in the store. The salesgirl grabbed my 8GB phone, quickly took me by the accessory wall (I declined, i'll wait to see what comes out in the next few weeks... how do you make an accessory for something you haven't seen?) and checked me out. One empty wallet later, I was on my way home with my treasure.
I got it to sync up pretty quickly, and easily, dropping a few photos on there that come out stunningly beautiful on the screen, and loading some songs and podcasts. yes, I've already listened to BTalk on the iPhone. We opened up the phone to our wi-fi at the house, and there its very speedy getting web pages pulled up and viewing You Tube videos. I'll be happy when they get more of the videos up for iPhone viewing because it doesn't use Flash to view them, and not all of them are in the new format.
The data network AT&T uses, EDGE is pokey, but not as bad as first thought. it's said that they boosted it's speed tremendously last night.
It's a really cool device, and there's going to be a lot to play with for the next few days getting used to it. typing is a bit of a problem for my fat fingers, but I did seem to get better at it. We'll see what else we can do with it.
So Chris and I went out to dinner and he had a lot of fun testing it out as well. Since he needs a Trio for work, and iPhone isn't for him right now. I enjoyed showing off the iPhone to a nearby table of women on their night out. They were all excited about seeing one in the wild.
Tomorrow I'll take it in to work to show what I came in so early for, and then over to Zeus to show Richard who sounds interested in seeing it. It's oh so much fun to get attention for having the big, new gadget. Yes, I'm silly that way.
So, that's the birthday present for myself.
Well, I've been up for hours, and as much as i'd like to keep playing with the new toy, I'll have to wait until tomorrow. I should be in bed.
Anyone who knows me knows I'm a big Apple fan, and I certainly was looking forward to picking up the new phone. I even held off replacing my 3 and a half year old phone for months waiting for this day to arrive. My old phone barely holds a charge anymore.
Well, it's also an Apple gadget. As someone who bought the first 5GB iPod the first week it was on sale, I'm willing to be the guy who buys a first generation product from the company from Cupertino - and to pay the high retail price to do so.
I got up at 4:30am and went into work extra early this morning, shocking the earlybird group. I kept up with the Mac forums that were relaying the steadily rising crowds at the Apple stores. I was getting worried that I wouldn't be able to get a phone since I couldn't get off until 3:30 and would take another 30 minutes to drive to my chosen AT&T store.
I didn't want to join in the craziness of the Apple stores. The Apple Stores were selling 2 phones per person while the AT&T would only let you get one, so I thought I'd have a much better chance there.
I drive down to the AT&T store that I scoped out a week ago. They couldn't give me any information then of how everything would go down. When I got there there was a line that was already going around one side of the free-standing building. Many people had brought collapsable chairs and were shooting the breeze. I had been told the people in the front of the line camped out overnight for their spot. They had brought a party tent with them.
There were about 40 of us in line. I got there at 4:00 and the line slowly continued to build. Plenty of people drove by to see what it was all about. People were good natured, and allowed people to run over to Starbucks to get refreshments and use the restroom without screaming at their getting out of line.
In front of me was one guy who was getting paid $200 by a company to buy a phone. his boss was mightily upset that it was one phone per person, so he called to have some other guys stand in line as well. I'm hoping that no one feels the need to buy these phones on Ebay. It just isn't worth paying more than it already costs! The stand-in was good to look at though. Cute and cubby, but wearing a Christian Tee.
Also in front of me was Justin and his mother. Justin is 12, and said he had been saving for a year for this. Justin was loud, obnoxious and lacking in manners, as you might expect from a 12 year old waiting in a line for 4 hours. He seemed ready to call all of his freinds and gloat that he was getting an iPhone (much like I am by writing to my LJ about it, no?). He did seem rather mad at the AT&T folks that they couldn't just open up for him and get it all done with now.
Justin was mad when I told him he'd have to take it home and sync it with his computer, and add all his phone contacts before he could actually use the phone. He wanted to open it up then and there, drop in the SIM card from his own phone and have instant gloatification. He started begging his mom for them to go home instead of a planned trip to their lakehouse, or he wouldn't get to use the phone all weekend. knowing what us line folks know of Justin's mom, he'll likely get his way.
No one else in line seemed to have a problem with the unusual setup, or having to wait in the well-mannered group. No problems, no dustups about place or anything. The AT&T people seemed to be a little grouchy about not being able to buy a phone themselves as several of them mentioned this, but they handled things very orderly.
Thirty minutes before sales were to start, people took their chairs back to their cars and the AT&T people took down our names for the line order, along with information about our wireless plan and phone number we wished to transfer to make it go faster. At six they took the first seven buyers in, as that was all the stations they had available. it took about 15 minutes for the first person to come out with their newly purchased sale.
Justin became more and more revved up as we slowly moved towards our destination. He was calling people on his old phone telling them loudly that he was getting an iPhone, all the time worried that there would not be enough stock. I told him, "they are just going to tell us thanks for standing in the iQueue, there are no iPhones, it was all an experiment to see how gullible you people are." His mom appreciated the humor, but not him.
When he finally went in, those of us near him gave a sigh of relief. I confirmed with a few others that they thought allowing a 12 year old, who had just dropped his old phone on the ground before us, to get at $600 phone was pretty silly. We give his phone 6 months, tops.
When I entered the store, it finally started to rain, hard. it had been threatening for some time, and we've had rain everyday for weeks now. Thunder and lightning and all. I was glad to be in the store. The salesgirl grabbed my 8GB phone, quickly took me by the accessory wall (I declined, i'll wait to see what comes out in the next few weeks... how do you make an accessory for something you haven't seen?) and checked me out. One empty wallet later, I was on my way home with my treasure.
I got it to sync up pretty quickly, and easily, dropping a few photos on there that come out stunningly beautiful on the screen, and loading some songs and podcasts. yes, I've already listened to BTalk on the iPhone. We opened up the phone to our wi-fi at the house, and there its very speedy getting web pages pulled up and viewing You Tube videos. I'll be happy when they get more of the videos up for iPhone viewing because it doesn't use Flash to view them, and not all of them are in the new format.
The data network AT&T uses, EDGE is pokey, but not as bad as first thought. it's said that they boosted it's speed tremendously last night.
It's a really cool device, and there's going to be a lot to play with for the next few days getting used to it. typing is a bit of a problem for my fat fingers, but I did seem to get better at it. We'll see what else we can do with it.
So Chris and I went out to dinner and he had a lot of fun testing it out as well. Since he needs a Trio for work, and iPhone isn't for him right now. I enjoyed showing off the iPhone to a nearby table of women on their night out. They were all excited about seeing one in the wild.
Tomorrow I'll take it in to work to show what I came in so early for, and then over to Zeus to show Richard who sounds interested in seeing it. It's oh so much fun to get attention for having the big, new gadget. Yes, I'm silly that way.
So, that's the birthday present for myself.
Well, I've been up for hours, and as much as i'd like to keep playing with the new toy, I'll have to wait until tomorrow. I should be in bed.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-06-30 04:51 am (UTC)I'm really thinking about it.. especially with the EDGE network boost.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-01 05:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-30 05:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-01 05:18 am (UTC)Did you finally get yours up and running? Mine seems to lose the AT&T network from time to time and I have to re-start it to get it to find it again. Not happy about that.
Did you wait in line for yours? Was it at an AT&T store or at an Apple store? It seems like the AT&T stores did more to set up your account for migration, giving me a login for iTunes and such, than the Apple Stores did.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-30 06:16 am (UTC)I work in an outsourced customer service call centre facility that has contracts for a couple of big cellphone/smartphone networks in the 'States (though we are not involved in the 2,000 person team AT&T/Cingular is said to have assembled to support the iPhone launch) and the telephone tech support guys who share space with my team were all buzzing about the iPhone today, even though a) it isn't available in Canada and probably won't be for months, and perhaps more directly because b) it competes for the market space currently occupied by the smartphones they support.
I think most of the guys on that team would have sacrificed a vital organ in exchange for an iPhone in hand.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-30 05:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-30 11:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-01 05:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-01 05:47 am (UTC)I'm really suprised by the turnout. Apple certainly has their legion of fans, but the iPod has certainly raised the bar on the number of people willing to buy an Apple product. Apple has really done well in developing the cool factor and developing buzz.
Yeah, the AT&T people said they were glad for the sales at the end of the month as they really had not sold much, especially smartphones for the weeks from the announcment of the official sales date. Seems everyone was putting off purchases to see what this thing can do.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-30 06:42 am (UTC)I may try tomorrow.
Needless to say, I'm dying of envy!
no subject
Date: 2007-07-01 05:22 am (UTC)it will be around for a while, unless you're like me an really need a cell phone, you can probably wait a bit. It's like buying windows vista before the first service pack - it's a bit risky. There's some good, some bad right now.
The best thing is, it seems to be popular, and apple can easily update the thing, unlike most phones. I look forward to the device only getting better.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-30 09:11 am (UTC);)
no subject
Date: 2007-07-01 05:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-30 01:53 pm (UTC)Also, you mentioned your birthday, which I know is a month away. Whenever I learn someone's birthday, I tend to try to put it in my Palm date book. I also do this for movie premieres that we want to see. Last night, we were at "Live Free or Die Hard" and during the previews Harry was prodding me to put some new movies in my date book. You have the distinction of sharing your birthday this year with the premiere of "Bourne Ultimatum." Now, in your best "Team America" voice, let's all say "Matt Damon." (Special thanks to "Bears in the City" for making that a regular quote on their show.)
no subject
Date: 2007-07-01 05:32 am (UTC)Well, i don't know when your reporter friend would have needed the interview. I was out in Grapevine, so i'm not sure that's officially Denton County, either. Still, I'm always up for interviews, i guess. :-)
I guess it will be interesting to see if the Palm OS lasts. It seems to be getting left off of new devices in favor of windows mobile. Even the CEO of Palm said they expected a really slow quarter for sales of the Trio 9either format) with the introduction of iPhone.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-01 05:36 am (UTC)The best thing is, they can send a firmware update through iTunes really easily, so several things are fixable whereas other phones you'd have to wait until you can buy an new one.
What was the skepticism?
no subject
Date: 2007-06-30 05:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-01 05:40 am (UTC)Otherwise, it will be around for a while. No worries!
no subject
Date: 2007-07-01 07:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-03 02:46 pm (UTC)You can't load a program onto the iPhone at this time. not sure when or if that's going to change. You can do web apps, and there's some to do and calendar stuff on the web, but no Palm emulation (that would probably never happen, the Palm OS is going to bite the big one soon)and no apps. I guess it would be a long time for you to get an iPhone, but I'm sure Microsoft is working on copying everything on it right now.