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AT&T Vs. Apple Store At the iPhone Launch
Posted by
kdawson
on Sat Jun 30, 2007 06:47 PM
from the doctor-jeckyll-and-mister-who dept.
from the doctor-jeckyll-and-mister-who dept.
MBCook tips an article at Gizmodo that begins with a reader's experiences trying to buy an iPhone yesterday at an AT&T store and an Apple store. Many, but not all, of the comments on the post echo this reader's experience: Apple good, AT&T bad. "Day one revealed what all Apple aficionados fear. That AT&T, through the depths of its incompetence, could derail the iPhone."
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Apple ends up looking bad (er, less than great) (Score:5, Interesting)
As some who saw my posts [slashdot.org] 3 days ago may have noted, i was very excited for the release of the iphone, and i bought four of them. However, this was GROSSLY mishandled by Apple not making it patently clear that Jobs had misspoke (or whatever) earlier. My plan to go to the AT&T owned local store was thwarted when one of our guys went down there (I was in meetings all day) check the line, then reported to me that he was told the store didn't have ANY iPhones at all, but was giving out "vouchers."
By this time the local Apple store was a madhouse. I'd dropped in around noon on my way to a meeting, and it had around 150 people in line (this is a not-so-very-well-known one, inside a crappy mall). By the time I got out of meetings and adjusted the buying plan, it was almost 8. The store ran out with around 200 people still ahead of me in line.
I got up this morning at 8am, and went to the store when it opened. I was the 42nd through the door, and bought 4 of the remaining 18 4GB phones (the 8GBs were all gone). Everyone behind me in line was told a shipment would arrive "later today sometime" and they could wait. No one got out of line and left.
Now that I have the iPhone, i'm as impressed as I hoped i'd be (and glad I bought three more for my colleagues), although it certainly could use some minor software updates (minor tweaks to the UI.. adding of buttons, landscape mode for the keyboard in other than Safari, etc).. but the pinch/stretch zoom, animations, etc are all phenomenal. The phone is very impressive, but does give a few feels of "beta," and the fact that some of the software even between our 4 phones is different suggests to the phones are still "development build" and several major revisions will be pushed through itunes software updates.
Overall, I am very pleased with the phone.. and less than pleased with Apple's management of the whole thing (I mean, it's their reputation here.. not AT&T's.. if anything I feel bad for AT&T, as it seems they may have been screwed out of phones originally due them so that the Apple stores could garner some publicity)
I will also say that the Apple store employees were applauding for us as we entered the store this morning. Really people.. APPLAUSE? WTF. It's a fricking phone, I'm not shaving my head for charity or doing something noble... I'm an American jackass spending $2k on phones because they can play H.264, have a nice UI, and won't crash, LOL. Also, for what it's worth, T-mobile has had my monthly payments for 3yrs now, and I *NEVER* have service (and I live in a major, populated, affluent part of Los Angeles). My treo/blackberry constantly say "no service" in my house. Today I have 5bars on my iPhone. Now, maybe this is just luck of the draw, and i'll have crappy reception in place that t-mobile rocked, but so far, I have zero regrets.
Re:Apple ends up looking bad (er, less than great) (Score:5, Insightful)
Plus it helps build a festival atmosphere, which looks good for the reporters that are going to be there -- it just adds to the buzz for the next big release.
I just want to go in and to my business without the annoying hooplah, but I understand why they did it.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
1) Going to the first showing of some outrageously popular film such as Lord of the Rings or Star Wars. Personally I can't stand the people who cheer at those events, and want to beat them within an inch of their lives.
2) Going to an amazing concert being performed by your favorite band.
Now... If you're standing in line for the first day of the launch of a product that is obviously going to be popular, such as the iPhone, you've got to expect the
Re:Apple ends up looking bad (er, less than great) (Score:5, Insightful)
Our society lacks enthusiasm in just about every area. Ennui rules, which is one reason why drug use continues to rise. I'd rather see people get pumped up over a new technology that just may make their lives easier and less stressful, and I'd rather see employees who actually are excited about their products than the completely bored losers slowly ambling towards me with my Big Mac and fries when I have a 30-minute lunch hour.
Why do you think Toyota is taking over as the world's biggest carmaker? Do you think maybe singing the company song each morning and doing some basic exercises to pump up employees makes a tiny bit of difference compared to the listless, overweight UAW workers slouching into GM plants?
I've worked at companies where the employees were enthusiastic, and we did great things. I've worked at companies where employees couldn't care less, and most of them are out of business.
Killjoy.
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Re:Apple ends up looking bad (er, less than great) (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Apple ends up looking bad (er, less than great) (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Apple ends up looking bad (er, less than great) (Score:4, Insightful)
Correction: you are an american jackass buying an apple 1.0 (meaning: it's unstable, as most apple 1.0 hardware/software).
People are already having problems with their mail program crashing [daringfireball.net].
You are an american jackass buying a beautiful, lusty phone, but that doesn't have lots of standard features people expect on phones, such as:
And even some of the features are badly implemented:
I am glad the phone won't be available ever in Venezuela. It is a pretty phone, the UI is mostly great, you have a great browser, but they could have made the phone better.
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Re:Apple ends up looking bad (er, less than great) (Score:5, Funny)
Me too. If they ever got popular, Hugo would just nationalize all the Apple Stores.
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Re:Apple ends up looking bad (er, less than great) (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not trying to be an Apple apologist in this reply - in fact we're going to compare to my company issued 7130e Blackberry from Verizon...
And yet Blackberries are quite standard in the corporate world simply because they can integrate with Exchange. Honestly, I hate mine.
Your first two points are valid, but the junk mail filters I've setup in Outlook do not work for my Blackberry - despite that expensive piece of software sitting on our server (Blackberry Enterprise Server). For the IM comment, I don't use that on my phone anyway. I hate "texting". I won't even send an email from my BB unless I have to. As for your last point, I will agree that with so many phones including GPS these days that it should start to become standard. However, that's yet another feature my 7130e seems to not have. I've found an option to enable GPS services, yet it has had no effect on anything I use - including Google Maps for Blackberry.
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Re:Apple ends up looking bad (er, less than great) (Score:4, Insightful)
they were applauding because you're...
>>
first, we have the early adopters that always pay a premium for what they want..
then there's the apple customers that always pay a premium for what they buy..
add the two together and you wonder why the employees of the company that just soaked you for 2 grand are applauding for.. you just paid one of their paychecks for the month!
$500-$600 (PLUS a two year contract! from, ahem, at&t..) for a friggin phone? no thanks. i'll take my freebies any day (have paid a total of $50 for the four phones i've had, dating back to the old analog "bricks"; those old phones still have all these fancy new ones beat as far as range goes)... a phone is a phone, that's all I need.
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Re:Apple ends up looking bad (er, less than great) (Score:5, Informative)
The "go to an AT&T store" was just a buzz-building maneuver. The entire quote, in context, was something like (I'm paraphrasing), "If you want to get an iPhone, you should go to an AT&T store. A lot of people are going to go to the Apple stores because they don't realize they're also for sale at AT&T stores, so if you go to an AT&T store, you'll have a better chance of getting one." That's just an attempt at a self-fulfilling prophecy (for vast lines at Apple)--and evidently, it worked. There were also vast lines at some AT&T stores, of course--Steve made the remark hoping to equally overflow BOTH outlets.
Apple's reputation is also more compatible with the "line up, stay overnight in line, and be on the news when the store opens" hoopla than AT&T's reputation is. By the way, the AT&T stores in Spokane, WA were indeed selling actual iPhones, although the AT&T kiosk in Moscow, ID was selling the vouchers.
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Original source (Score:3, Interesting)
You already knew everything you needed to know about which store being faster, based on how they operate day to day. I know; I went into an AT&T store a day or two before. Just a few cash registers? Simple math says throughput will be low, compare
Re:Apple ends up looking bad (er, less than great) (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't get the point of standing in a huge queue for something. Wait a couple of weeks and you'll be able to just walk into the shop and buy it without waiting, plus you get to find out whether the first version is worth buying at all.
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Re:Apple ends up looking bad (er, less than great) (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm going out tonight, and I know that I'm going to run into at least one person with a crowd of people around them because they are showing off their spiffy new iPhone. The iPhone is like the Tickle Me Elmo doll for the 20+, need to be perceived as tuned in and cool with the cutting edge segment of society.
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Re:Apple ends up looking bad (er, less than great) (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:American Psycho meets American Kitsch. (Score:4, Funny)
This is slashdot and the facts are important, Sir!
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IBRICK. (Score:3, Interesting)
I activated two yesterday, they both worked for 12 hours. This morning neither phone will make or receive calls; or browse on EDGE.
The GSM/EDGE modem is BRICKED -- STAY FAR AWAY. Apple blames ATT, and ATT blames Apple.
These guys are in way over their heads. Meanwhile, 15 hours of tech support hold time later -- still can't make a call.
Re:IBRICK. (Score:5, Funny)
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and i quote (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not that they're incompetent. It's just that they don't care. They don't have to. They're the phone company.
Re:and i quote (Score:5, Interesting)
For anyone who doesn't get this, it's a reference to AT&T's monopoly days when Saturday Night Live had a sketch starting Lilly Tomlin in '76 called simply enough... "The Phone Company [jt.org]." Surprisingly, I can't find a YouTube video.
I don't think it's much of a surprise to anyone that AT&T might end up the weak link in this partnership. But I submitted this story because I think it shows just how different some companies (like Apple) view the consumers compared to others (like AT&T). This just happened to be a fantastic example of just how different the two ends of the spectrum are.
Of course, if you were to look through enough of my posts, you'd see I don't have much regard for cell phone companies (or cable companies, or...). But then again that's quite common on Slashdot.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That's because that character of Tomlin's, Ernestine the Phone Operator, pre-dates SNL: It goes back to Rowan and Martin's Laugh-in [tvacres.com].
Here's a clip from The Cher Show [youtube.com].
Re:and i quote (Score:5, Interesting)
I recently bought a new smartphone. I refuse to buy any locked phone so I got a unbranded unlocked Samsung SGH-i607. Dropped in my sim and all was happy.
I called up AT&T to add unlimited smartphone data service to my phone. They said I cant. I asked why and they said that the Samsung is not a smartphone.
I then had to explain for 25 minutes how they sell the damned thing as a smartphone on their own website and that it is in fact a smartphone, please charge me $19.99 more a month and turn on the service.
I had to go through 4, FOUR transfers and 2 managers all of them not believing that a product they sell as a smartphone is really a smartphone. Finally I gave up and told the next guy I had bough a new TREO 700w and need the smartphone unlimited plan.
They said OH! and activated the changes.
AT&T is rampant with incompetence. This happens every time I have to call them, people dont know what they sell or even offer let alone what to do.
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iPhone VS OpenMoko (Score:3, Interesting)
Firstly, being stuck to the set provider is not very cool, secondly the other two phones are far more hackable for us open-source geeks.
Re:iPhone VS OpenMoko (Score:4, Informative)
I'm pretty damned happy. I've been waiting a long time.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
According to your link, the "base" version will cost $300, and the "developer" version (with a 2nd battery, USB host cable, debug board, etc.) will cost $450. You wouldn't happen to have a guess at what the WiFi-enabled October version will cost, would you?
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Re:iPhone VS OpenMoko (Score:5, Insightful)
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Hurray for early adopters (Score:3, Interesting)
I for one am sick of bleeding on the bleeding edge. "Oh new and shiny today!". Tomorrow it's just old news "Yeah so what..." Good luck to all of you suckers. I'm on AT&T right now and looking to drop them after my contract is up. I'm hoping Apple gets a version out that will work with another provider... but I'm gonna wait and see. It's definitely not automatic but that interface sure is slick
Satisfaction (Score:5, Informative)
I will never ever ever ever deal with AT&T aga (Score:3, Interesting)
About the only thing that changed was that, as an experiment, instead of mailing them a check, I used my bank's online bill-paying service. Things went OK for several months. The month of the incident I am about to relate, I authorized online payment of AT&T's bill about eight business days before the due date. The bank's online site said that payment would take five days, because apparently AT&T didn't accept electronic payments from them.
Then, one night, at dinnertime, I got a telephone call from a collection agency saying my account was overdue.
Briefly, the facts as they ultimately emerged were: a) the bank statement showed the bill as having been "paid" about five days before the due date; b) the image of the back of the cancelled check from the bank showed AT&T's bank as having received it several days before the due date; c) AT&T's own records showed the bill as having been paid one or two days late.
AT&T's billing office was perfectly nice and acknowledged having received payment. In a few days they sent me a written acknowledgement.
But the collection agency wouldn't stop calling.
AT&T kept saying they had told the collection agency they had received payment. The collection agency kept saying "This office has not received that information."
The collection agency refused to provide me with any contact information other than a post office box number.
I mailed them photocopies of the back of the cancelled check and AT&T's statement showing payment. The people on the phone said they had not received them. (Since they would not provide anything but a PO box I couldn't send the material by certified mail).
They continued to phone me every night at dinner time for several weeks.
Eventually the calls stopped, but I was extremely ticked off. I sent a polite, well-worded letter to the CEO of AT&T--who was it? Ivan something-or-other? Seigelman? Seidenberg, saying I thought I'd been treated pretty badly and I wanted them to at least refund that month's bill, about $65. Someone from Seidenberg's office called me, talked to me, listened carefully, apologized nicely, and said they would indeed send the $65.
A week passed. No $65. Two weeks. Three weeks. A month. No check in the mail.
I switched my long-distance service to another carrier. I left a message with whomever it was at Seidenberg's office, explaining why. I got a returned message from the same person, who sounded genuinely upset, saying that she had instructed some office or other to send me the check but that apparently it hadn't happened. A week later I did, in fact, get a check for $65.
But I had already switched, and needless to say I didn't switch back.
For the next year, I got periodic mailing and occasional phone calls from AT&T saying they missed me, and wouldn't I switch back.
Unbelievable. I'm very lazy. Absolutely all AT&T ever had to do to keep me as a customer was to exploit my inertia and not do anything to actively drive me away. They lost a 25-year customer by a) siccing a collection agency on me for one bill that was two days late according to AT&T... and on time according to the back of the check, and b) utterly screwing up the follow-up.
Not troll, I swear (Score:5, Insightful)
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I would answer (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Not troll, I swear (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Not troll, I swear (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically, it can be fun to be passionate about trivial things sometimes. Whether it's a football team, a rock band, a video game console, or a phone company, it lets you revel in some of the emotion and excitement that 8 hours of work and two hours of commuting each day doesn't let you use.
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Re:Not troll, I swear (Score:4, Interesting)
So, unless you prefer dumping hours of your precious life down the tubes reading a poorly-written manual to learn (or, morel likely, not learn) a crappily-designed UI, it should seem quite normal. Life is too short to memorize arbitrary menu navigation.
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I agree (Score:5, Insightful)
This post is not intended as a flame or some kind of universal truth...just my own experiences and observations.
I have purchased 4 ipods thus far (2 for myself and 2 as gifts). I bought my mother a mac mini for her birthday. I think Apple is the most innovative company in consumer electronics right now. I have disposable income and I like spending my money on gizmos.
I live in Boston. I had Cingular / AT&T for four years and verizon for three. I had terrible reception and frequent dropped calls with Cingular and nearly none (in the same place) with Verizon.
Based on my personal experiences I'm going to wait until I can use the iphone with another carrier.
You guys can't bash Apple for this shit, though. A few huge corporations have a stranglehold on the cellular networks in this country, and they're more than willing to keep selling you the same service they've always been pushing as long as they possibly can. Apple had to cut a deal with one of the providers, and why would the market leaders push a product which will force them to offer new features, expand their network, and increase consumer expectations? Thus we get this Apple / AT&T deal.
Bottom line, iphone early adopters are going to have to suffer with a second-best carrier for six months to a year or so, at which point other companies (assuming the thing hasn't flopped) will start making the modifications to support the iphone's data-dependent features. Cell phone carriers that aren't leading the market won't change a thing unless they think it's going to gain them market share, and ones that are won't change a thing unless they're already losing it. It's just the way the game works.
iWait with my iBrick (Score:3, Interesting)
At 9:30 pm, I started the activation process using iTunes. An existing AT & T customer, I figured this would be no issue. I was wrong.
I saw the dreaded, "Your activation requires additional time to complete." and waited. and waited and waited.
I was told the following fun things from AT & T customer service:
I was sent an e-mail from AT & T giving me an order number. When I mentioned to customer service that number, I was told, "That number doesn't really mean anything to us."
It's 10:34 pm on Saturday night, and my iPhone is still an iBrick.
My Similar experience. (Score:5, Interesting)
Executive summary
- AT&T Mgr. refused to give basic information (do you have enough iPhones for all 20 people in line?)
- AT&T Mgr. lied about availability (iPhones are sold out all through the city)
- AT&T Mgr. intentionally tries to hide Apple Store availability to get more sales for his store.
- AT&T screwed up the order for the first guy in line, who had been waiting for hours. By the time he realized they gave him a 4GB phone, there were no 8GB units left.
- Apple store had many iPhones. Completed quick, easy, efficient transaction.
The long version:
I wasn't about to wait in lines for more than 15-30 minutes, but I headed up to the closest AT&T/Cingular store which was in an area I thought might not get a lot of traffic (Kalamazoo Rd & Hwy 6, Grand Rapids, MI). There were about 20 people waiting in line at 5:55PM, so I joined in.
The AT&T rep came out and asked for a show of hands on how many people wanted 4GB vs 8GB. Almost everyone wanted 8GB, and by his grimace I saw that was going to be a problem. I asked him how many phones they had, and he said "I can't tell you that". I persisted, asking if it was worth while for those of us near the end to wait. He said "if we run out, we can process the order and direct ship to your home". So, now his intention was obvious.. keep as many people there as possible, and try to get more sales even after running out of phones. There were 4 or 5 employees, but for some reason they only allowed two people to enter the store at a time, and the transactions seemed to take forever.
Against my better judgment, I stayed in line. About 45 minutes later, they had slowly processed 10-15 people ahead of me. One of the earlier people came out and said they had run out. Shortly after that, the first guy in line returned. He had bought an 8GB iPhone and later found that they had given him a 4GB unit. Now all the 8GB units were gone.. The manager came out and asked if anyone in the line was paying cash and wanted a 4GB unit. One guy jumped at this, and they took his money, gave it to the first guy, and gave the cash guy the iPhone. Kinda shady to avoid a return..
The AT&T people said that no other stores in the city had iPhones left. (I had already tried to call the Apple store to see their status, but couldn't get through.) And they said they would do free next day shipping, and claimed that ordering in the store would be faster than online. I am in Eastern time zone, and I thought the online purchases might be closed until 6PM Pacific. So, I went ahead and ordered it there. The guy taking my order seemed like he had never used the sales system before, and it took 5+ minutes to complete my sale.
Shortly before I got in the AT&T store, some guy walked up and asked why we (the four remaining laggards) were waiting in line. He said "there's no lines at the Apple store at the mall, and they have plenty left". We had all seen coverage of the campers at the Apple store on last night's news, so we thought he was messing with us, or trying to get us to give up our spots in line.
On the off chance he was telling the truth, I drove over to the mall. There were a lot of people milling around the store, fondling the iPhones on display. I asked an employee if they had any left, and he pointed to the rows of iPhone bags behind the genius desk and registers.. there were over a hundred there on the floor. I picked up an 8GB iPhone, the Apple employees were plentiful, helpful, and efficient. The purchase took all of 40 seconds. Ithen zipped back over to the AT&T store to void my earlier transaction.
They voided my iPhone order without argument (I was a bit surprised at that). I explained to the manager that he was incorrect when he told me that there were no more iPhones in the city, and told him of the hundreds at the Apple store. He quickly called another AT&T store and began comparing notes with someone there.
I didn't have any trouble (Score:3, Interesting)
1. The staff was trying to upsell accessories and AT&T DSL service.
2. Their computers were bogged down due to the event.
I had (have) a Cingular RAZR already, and he identified me in the computer. I don't know for sure, but pre-opening announcements were made to the effect that they were going to set you up with an account in the store prior to your iTunes activation, probably as a means to prevent eBay arbitrage.
After I paid, he dropped the phone in a bag and actually sealed it. Not sure what the point of that is/was.
The last oddity was that a store employee was stationed by the door and was locking and unlocking the door as people would enter and exit. I pointed out to them (on the way out - I'm no fool) that the fire marshal would have a fit if he caught them doing that. Crowd control is understandable, but locking the only means of egress from a retail space when customers are present is a bit of a no-no.
When I got home, the iTunes activation procedure with the phone was everything they promised it would be. It was only a couple minutes before the iPhone was up and running.
Re: (Score:3)
Technicians in the store have the ability to call HQ to get clearance in situations like this while customer support phone service is much less efficient (my experience dealing with specifically with cell phone companies).
If I am launching a major new product with the potential fo
Re:Give me a break (Score:5, Informative)
So precisely how can the AT&T 'monkeys' panic over activation?
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Re:my iPhone works great (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Give me a break (Score:4, Interesting)
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You're not competent to comment. (Score:3, Insightful)
You mean iTunes?
I used iTunes as the music manager for my non-iPod MP3 player: it handles non-DRM-ed MP3s just fine, and smart playlists are a really neat tool for managing your MP3 player's storage... I'm sure that they prototyped the iPod shuffle's smart shuffle that way.
I'll agree t