I did it…I got an iPhone 3G
Well, I’ve done it, I got myself an iPhone 3G. I decided not to try and get a phone on the 11th July. I was busy anyway and it was going to be like a zoo, so, I decided to try my luck today. I also decided based on reading news on the internet that I would go straight to an Apple store rather than an O2 shop, as it looked like many had run out of stock.
The nearest Apple store to me is in Milton Keynes, so I got to the shop at 8:30am today. I was about 7th in the queue outside the Apple store which was due to open at 9am. The manager of the shop came out around 8:45am and explained what would happen at 9am and how we should queue when inside the store.
There were going to be two queues. One for those people who could not get there phone activated yesterday but had been queueing yesterday. The other queue was for new iPhone customers, which included me :D
There were around 7 terminals (20″ iMacs) which were being used for iPhone registrations. The manager explained that they would process those people from yesterday and then get onto us, which to be honest seemed only fare. One chap in my queue started to complain abou that fact, but soon shut up!!
Whilst queuing the staff in the shop gave constant updates and made checks to make sure everyone had all the documents they needed. One person in the queue asked about stock levels. The manager said that he could not comment on exact stock levels, but that they had enough to meet everyones needs. So they seemed comfortable they had enough stock. Problems had been encountered on Friday with activation both through the O2 portals being used and the iTunes servers. Whilst I was waiting, the manager provided a number of realtime updates to his staff about problems which had been seen and how to they could be avoided when moving through the O2 portal, so issues were being resolved as quickly as possible from the looks of things.
At 10:10am I was called forward to have my order taken. It was a multi step process which dealt with taking your details, proving your identity, performing a credit check, taking the order and acticvating the phone. All in all this took around 25 mins and I was then on my way with my new iPhone :D
I’ve spent the day playing with it and working my way around. This is the first iPhone I have owned and I am already enjoying it. It’s easy to use, provides a a great deal of functionality and looks amazing. I’ve gone for the 16Gb white model. The black looks really nice, but I am obsessive about marks and finger prints on gadgets, so I decided that the white would not show up the finger prints like the black would.
I am now waiting for a reliable unlock method for the 3G so that I can give the SIM to my wife and put my Vodafone SIM in. I have to be honest that I’ve found the 3G data service from O2 today very good, so part of me is disappointed that I cannot stay with O2, but I need to use my corporate card for the phone so Vodafone it will have to be.
I’ll post some photos when I get a chance, but right now I’m off to play some more.
Mike
P.S. I also setup MobileMe on the iPhone for which I already had account (my .Mac account flipped to MobileMe). Within a few seconds all my contacts and emails were on my iPhone and it was receiving push email…very cool :)
jonny on July 13th, 2008
WOOHOO!! Nice one mate :) I can’t justify the cost at the moment. Also there are no unlimted data plans in Oz yet :( Looks like I may be getting a nice tax refund so maybe in the future LOL! Never say never ;)