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Activation Problems in iPhone Paradise
Thomas Hawk writes "Unfortunately it appears that some activations of Apple's new iPhone have gone badly. After waiting in line 36 hours I'm still unable to activate my phone. I'm documenting the AT&T circus call by call on my blog. I've had my hold calls dropped, been patched into other users unable to activate their phone instead of AT&T customer service reps, been told that my wife must get a new phone and that the family plan can't work for me. I've been told that the problem is that I'm not putting a new chip into my iPhone in the slot on the left side of my phone when no slot there exists. PR Blogger Steve Rubel has also been documenting his problems on his Twitterstream. According to an unscientific poll being conducted by Engadget about half of the people who bought iPhones have had activation trouble with about 38% of problems still unresolved." Even the folks at MacWorld weren't immune to these issues.
Keep in mind that AT&T is turning on more cell phone accounts at once than anyone has ever done in the history of the cell phone industry. iPhone sales have either hit a million units already, or they will by the end of the coming week. If they perform at 99.9%, that's still going to be a thousand people running into problems.
Everyone I know who's gotten one so far had it activated in a couple of minutes. The real story here is how smoothly it's going overall.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Lesson: do not launch product that requires extensive customer service at the beginning of a weekend.
The general observation seems to be that activation from a cold start works OK, but anything that requires "number portability" from a previous account may be troublesome. That's no surprise; number portability is usually a mess, because the carriers don't want you to use that Government-mandated feature.
It's still not clear why activation should require a separate computer. Activation via iTunes might be a nice option if you already use iTunes, but it shouldn't be the main route. After all, the iPhone has its very own Internet connection.
The iPhone looks like a great piece of tech, and I might get one someday. But...
It seems like Slashdot has a greater and greater proportion of articles that relate to gadgets (stuff to buy), and fewer and fewer that are about tech developments, science, etc. I'm not bitching about Slashdot, but is it really the case that nerds have become merely watered-down gear-freaks, and no longer employ their mind in the pursuit of knowledge?
Please, oh true nerds, answer my rallying cry!
I'm not trying to shift blame at all. I said myself that 25% of the phones I purchased had activation problems. But I don't posit that as evidence that 25% of *ALL* iphones have had activation problems. Look at the replied to my last three comments (which all got modded +5, btw), and you'll find the exact people i'm talking about who may have clicked "my phone is still unactivated!" when they don't even own one. (for the lazy, comments: here | here | here)
Replied to those comments, you'll see people who said they would laugh at me/whomever they saw on the street using an iPhone, people calling me stupid/dumb, calling those in lines "emo retards," calling those in line "suckers," etc. Now, most people who choose not to buy an iPhone just do so out of logical choice, and that's the extent of their involvement.. but there most definitely is a vocal minority that feels slighted by Apple.. I really don't know exactly why, but I can say for sure that when I spent $600 a piece on my unlocked Treos (as did many others a few years ago), I don't recall a sizable portion of people calling me retarded/dumb/etc. The fact is a lot of people online have some sort of irrational distaste for the iPhone, and for those that buy it. And I don't believe that 40% of the people who bought the phone so far are still without service (as noted in the poll). I suspect it's in the single digit percentile, which still sucks if you're in that group, but 40% it isn't. I even posted a link to the Apple discussion page that has hundreds if not thousands of relies from people with activation problems.. but Apple is quickly approaching the "million iPhones sold" mark, and I don't imagine that of those million there will be several hundred thousand that take 48+hrs to navigate an activation quagmire. But hey, maybe I'm just lucky in my experiences. Engadget even noted themselves that they've activated 6 iphones without any problems.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
Not only that, but the respondents are self-selecting (why would the "happy middle," who have no stake in spreading their tales of joy, even respond to the poll? While a higher percentage of early adopters probably read Engadget, it's still a small minority of the market. How about the benefit of iPhone haters claiming problems just to stir the pot?) and don't have to "prove" that they even have an iPhone. It's basically the same as asking, "what's your opinion about Windows Vista after purchase?" without taking any further steps.
Are we really willing to believe that 13,000 iPhone customers responded to a poll on a tech-nerd website like Engadget? If that's even remotely accurate, that should indicate the high sales rate of the iPhone. But then again, it's similar to the response rate of every other Engadget poll, so it's probably total crap.
For the record, I don't care either way whether or not 38% of customers had activation trouble or not. I don't care whether 100,000 iPhones sold or 2 million did. It's a neat gadget, but my life isn't riding on it.
Brand new product fails to have flawless launch. Film at eleven on The No Fucking Kidding News Network.
All Apple have done by their move is ensure that anyone buying their phone package is locked into a contract that with the phone costs anywhere upwards of $2000 for two years. That represents absolutely terrible value for money. You really would have to be blinded by the hype to buy an iPhone on those terms. It's an utter waste of money especially considering other technical deficiencies such as lack of 3G. Perhaps a firmware update will fix that issue because there's going to be some severe buyers remorse if an updated model appears with that feature.
How many GSM providers are nationwide in the USA? AT&T, T-Mobile, anyone else?
They couldnt' set up a service with Verizon Wireless (an example) because they just don't do GSM technology.
It's unfortunate that AT&T is so clueless on this coming out of the gate. I think the iPhone has mind numbing potential. GSM is the right choice if you consider a world wide market, but not for US market, because GSM is more widely used globally. Economy of scale in units manufactured dictate that they go with GSM for a global market.
If you look at the techcentric nations of the world, the United States is not the leading country. We don't have the digital high speed cellular networks or internet broad band speeds of other nations. I just don't think you can safely market a product of this type to only the USA when we have a global market to consider.