iPhone, AT&T, and Verizon

When the new iPhone was announced, I was actually kind of excited. I don't particularly enjoy jumping on bandwagons and more importantly, I've never been a big fan of Apple. I grew up with a PC. I've never had or wanted an iPod or a Mac. And I think Steve Jobs is a dick. But man, they seemingly make a great phone.

I've been a Verizon subscriber for about 7 years. I've hated them for most of that time. Their customer service is crap. And their pricing policies seem to be arbitrary, at best - whatever they can do to squeak a few more bucks from their customers. I'm not sure a good cell phone provider even exists, but it's surely not Verizon. After giving them thousands and thousands of dollars over the years, you'd think they'd have a little more interest in pleasing me. Nope. Well, my contract finally ran out a few months ago and boy was I happy to cancel. They had continually roped me into contract after contract. What a pain in the ass. This time, I was holding out... waiting for a phone I really liked. And then, I thought I found it, the iPhone 2.0.

I read online that it made sense to go into AT&T early if you weren't already a customer in order to get a credit check and to convert your number. I went in last Wednesday and they offered me a phone to take until I got my iPhone (I had to buy it, of course, but I could return it a few days later). I figured Friday would be a mob scene, so I opted not to go wait in line. On Saturday, they were sold out. I went again this morning before they opened. They had told me yesterday they were getting a shipment last night. I wondered how they knew...but I guess they did.

After waiting in line for about an hour, the store manager came out an told us they didn't receive any phpnes yesterday and didn't have any to sell. Well, that would have been all good and well except for a few things. Why the hell did they have us sit out there waiting when they knew they didn't have any? Why wasn't there a sign on the door to dissuade us from wasting our time? How about when the employees were working an hour before the store opened - couldn't they say anything? And what the hell has Apple been doing the last few months with their manufacturing? They couldn't make enough? That seems pretty unlikely. Especially because there were only 10 of us in line today. As many people have pointed out online, there appears to be a manufactured supply shortage. Marketing or not, this is annoying, and I've suddenly lost most of my interest in the iPhone. Will I get one? Maybe. Am I going to wait in line anymore? Nope. I don't blame AT&T for this, they're strictly bound by Apple's policies... and I'm sure they're happy to have all of these conversions.

And I didn't even talk about the rest of the problems this release had... (here)