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June 10, 2008
In what is most likely an effort to stifle the purchasing and unlocking of iPhones for use on other networks, Apple and at&t have announced that you will not be able to buy your iPhone online, nor will you be able to buy the phone and activate it later. Purchase and activation will take place at the same time.
While I completely understand at&t’s desire to prevent the iPhone usage on other networks, since I am sure they paid a pretty penny for the exclusivity, I have to imagine that there is a better way to go about this. Forcing a 10 - 12 minute process onto people in the store is going to make the initial buying day (July 11) a complete mad house.
I remember back to the original launch day, and even though I wasn’t buying one I went with my brother to get his and the store was mad crazy. In that particular episode, he yelled (yes, yelled) at the guy behind the counter, over the top of all the apple fan boys, that he wanted an iPhone, and then half-handed half threw his credit card to the guy who ran it and came out with the phone and the receipt. The whole process took maybe 2 minutes, and it was still crazy in that store.
Now, factor in that NO ONE will be able to buy online, and the phone is now priced so that my 14 year-old nephew can afford one, and that the purchase time has gone from 2 minutes to 15- 20 minutes, and that is assuming that at&t’s activation servers don’t take a massive dump (remember the last time … they did. ).
So, how much pandamonium can we expect when the activation server go down, and the people who have been sitting in line for as long a week or so, can’t even buy the phone since at&t can’t activate it..
I will be there just to watch the show.
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July 11th, 2008 at 8:45 am
[...] this post [ Buy your iPhone3G online? Apple and at&t say no way! ]. In that post I reminiced back to last year when the at&t activation servers went down, [...]