My iPhone 3G Experience So Far

So it’s been about three months since I purchased my Apple iPhone 3G and although there’s been quite a few speed bumps since the July 11th launch overall it’s been a great experience. Here’s my thoughts on what went well, what went horribly bad and what Apple should do in the future to make launches go even smoother.

Let me start this post by telling you I’ve become quite an Apple Fanboy over the last 6 – 7 years. I simply just like their products better and kind of like the idea of being part of a smaller group trying to do things a little different than the big bad company which in this case would be Microsoft. Obviously things have changed over the years since Apple was a small, fledgling company, but overall I just like their style a bit more. Their ability to create simple user interfaces also sets them ahead of their competition. I mean how many times have you heard someone see a product and say “that design is Apple like”. Quite a few times for me anyways.

Although I would consider myself a fanboy I don’t wear rectangle black rimmed glasses, or a black turtleneck while sitting in Starbucks sipping on a frappo mocho chino latte with my MacBook Air. I’m actually an athlete turned tech geek who wears jeans and a t-shirt, likes getting bottle service at nightclubs occasionally and has actually never ever had a cup of coffee in my entire 32+ years of existence. And although I am a fanboy I definitely won’t give any company a pass when they screw up… Apple included. 

The following story details my iPhone 3G purchase experience from launch day through today…

So it’s June 29th, 2008 at around 4 AM and I find myself trying to figure out where to go for launch day to pick up my new iPhone 3G. I was in Minneapolis at the time and figured I could go downtown to the AT&T store as I knew the Apple store at Ridgedale mall in Minnetonka or the one at the Mall of America would be packed. My plans soon changed as I woke up and looked outside to see it pouring rain out. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but knowing the downtown AT&T store probably wouldn’t have a covered waiting area I decided I’d better go to the Ridgedale AT&T store where there is a covered waiting area and also probably a smaller line than the Apple stores.

On the way there I drove by the Ridgedale Apple store just to see the line as the other store was just a few short blocks away. The line was ridiculously long. Probably a good 200-300 people already and it was only around 6 AM at this point.

About 6:05 AM I arrived to see about 50 people in line. I was relieved as I figured I wouldn’t have to wait very long once the phones went on sale at 8 AM, plus I was also a little worried about the quantity of 16GB black iPhones in stock at each store. With only about 50-60 people in front of me I felt pretty good about getting the phone I wanted.

Around 7:30 AM an AT&T store rep came out with a few others to greet the crowd which now had grown to about 150 people. He asked everyone to fill out a worthless piece of paper detailing which phone we wanted and what plan we wanted. Apparently this was supposed to speed up the process which had already been delayed compared to the initial iPhone first generation launch a year earlier. Apparently with AT&T now subsidizing the iPhone it brought the initial purchase price down from $599 to $199 although to do this the two companies decided the only way to prevent multiple purchases by people trying to buy the phones for cheap and then sell them unlocked online was to make every purchaser only be allowed to purchase one iPhone per customer and also do the entire sign up process in line at the point of purchase. Although this initially may have prevented this it only added to the nightmare that was about to become the Apple iPhone 3G launch.

At 8 AM sharp the doors finally opened with reps allowing in only 6 people at a time. 4 people at the registers and 2 people in a waiting area. I honestly figured it would take about 10-15 minutes per person and would take no more than an hour to get my phone. Unfortunately the first person in didn’t leave the store for almost one full hour. Apparently Apple underestimated the demand and stress launching iPhone 3G Worldwide along with the launch of MobileMe and the new iPhone 2.0 software would put on their servers. Unfortunately this caused the iTunes in store signup process to crash and made for a terribly long and frustrating day.

To make things worse with about 10 people left in front of me an AT&T rep came out again and notified everyone that he didn’t know how many black iPhone 3G’s were left and that they would offer drop shipment for anyone who didn’t get the phone model they wanted. At the time they were telling people they would have their phone within 7 days if they did drop shipment, but as we all know it took almost 30 days for those people to get their phones. I mean c’mon… Not only was I only about 55 or so back in line at the beginning of the day, but you’re telling me the ATT rep didn’t know how many phones were left. Bullshit! I hate the secrecy both Apple and AT&T reps try to use. You work at a retail store and make $10/hour… you don’t work for the NSA. Go count the fucking phones and let the 150 or so people still standing in line in the rain know so they can decide if they should waste away the rest of their day. Nonetheless these idiots don’t tell us anything until 2 people are left in front of me and an actual customer comes out to say there’s no more black iPhone 3G’s. My response… Are you fucking serious? One of the biggest launches in tech history and you don’t have more than 50 of the most widely popular model in stock on launch day? Absolutely crazy!

On a side note… right before I was about to finally get in some douchebag walks up to the ATT rep at the front of the line and says he wants to discuss some options on his regular cell phone plan. The ATT rep literally told him to come back tomorrow. When the guy insisted that he was a customer too the ATT rep told him “Not today buddy and that if he wanted help he could go to the end of the line”. This obviously upset the guy and he stormed off swearing. Now in a way I kind of felt bad for the guy since he was also a customer and just because he didn’t want to stand in line for a phone he should still be able to get helped and the ATT rep was actually a little rude to him. On the other hand… this douchebag decided to try to come to an AT&T store to get general help questions answered at the height of one of the biggest launches in tech/product history. WTF was this guy thinking? Did he never watch the news? However you look at it, it doesn’t really matter. The guy had no more right to get help than anyone of the other 150+ people there and should have waited at the end of the line if he wanted help at that time. We were all customers or potentially new customers too and so he had no rights over us.

Ok back to the debacle at hand… I finally get inside and get my iPhone 3G which now has shrunk to an 8GB black model. I could have done the drop shipment, but didn’t trust their 7 day shipping would actually happen which it didn’t and also had already promised to give my first gen iPhone to my brother. So now it’s 11:30 AM and I finally have my iPhone 3G in hand. It’s now half the hard drive size I originally wanted, but nonetheless I have it. Unfortunately because of Apple iTunes server problems both AT&T and Apple have now only did an initial setup on the phones and are now telling people to go home and plugin to iTunes to do the rest of the setup. Guess the iTunes in store setup was a sham afterall.

So I finally get home after about 6 hours of waiting only to find out from sites like AppleInsider that there are massive iTunes problems worldwide and that I probably wouldn’t be able to even use my phone for quite a few hours.  I plug the new iPhone 3G into my computer and just as expected an error pops up on the screen. So now I’m without a phone all day, I’m supposed to meet my girlfriend in downtown Minneapolis for dinner, but not knowing the restaurant or even being able to get a hold of her I just have to sit and wait for iTunes to work. Eventually around 4 PM it does and my phone finally works. At that point I was frustrated, but happy as I now had my new toy and it finally was working. So I thought.

As we all know the iTunes activation problems were only the start of the problems. MobileMe wasn’t as they claimed as it doesn’t actually push from your computer to the phone only from the phone to your computer and the iPhone/iPod Touch 2.0 software turned out to be worse than the 1.x software. MobileMe actually shouldn’t have even been released at I wouldn’t have considered it even in beta. The service just simply didn’t work and was released months before it should have been. The iPhone 2.0 software was a joke as it too wasn’t tested. Apparently Apple felt with that they were on a roll and couldn’t be stopped and that they could get away with using their customer base as beta testers. In the end it did work this one time, but I highly doubt even their most devout followers would let it happen again.

All in all I think the launch was a disaster and Apple really pissed a lot of people off including their cult like following. The media for the most part gave them a pass in the end and eventually Apple got MobileMe and iPhone 2.1 software working right even if it was months after the launch. I’ll admit I also gave them a pass in the end, but that was simply because even with all these problems I still think the iPhone is way better than any other smart phone out there and more importantly has the 3rd party developer community excited and the ability to work “almost” flawlessly with your media, email, calendars and preferences stored in your computer. While I do think Apple completely botched the launch I do think they’re light years ahead of the competition and will be allowed at least one complete fuckup. On the other hand they’ll have to really work hard to get even a fanboy like me back to wait in another line on launch day.

Below I’ve made a list of the problems with the iPhone 3G launch, MobileMe debut and iPhone/iPod Touch 2.0 software along with what’s still wrong with the phone and services and what future things they could do to improve their products/services and future launches.

Launch Problems

• Not nearly enough supply for the demand
• Very little info from the AT&T reps on supply
• iTunes server problems and activation process
• Left most people without any phone service for most of the day
• MobileMe simply didn’t work and wasn’t even beta software
• MobileMe isn’t really full “Push” like they advertised
• iPhone 2.0 software was buggy as hell and wasn’t even beta
• Overall put out products/services that weren’t ready for public and tried to launch too many things all at once

Current problems

• MobileMe still isn’t full “Push”
• Email won’t fetch or push properly
• Text alert makes noise then does it again 15 minutes later even though there’s no new text

Future Fixes, Feature Requests and Launch Day Ideas

• Widescreen landscape text and email
• Copy and Paste
• Video iChat
• Higher resolution camera with zoom and focus
• Slingbox TV integration or at least as an official App
• Full voice turn by turn GPS directions
• Removable battery
• Ability to shoot and record video
• Ability to highlight and delete large chunks of text at one time
• Stop using Yahoo for Weather and Stocks
• Adobe Flash for iPhone
• Notes and To Do List that actually sync with computer
• Ability to search emails
• MMS Messaging
• Download ringtones directly to iPhone
• Camera Flash, Zoom and Image Stabilization
• Choose Your Carrier (Possibly coming after AT&T deal is completed in 2009)
• Tethering
• Ability to edit documents

I’m sure there’s plenty more I missed and will occasionally update this post. So what was your experience on launch day? Would you still buy Apple products in the future? What features would you like to see still fixed or created for future releases?