The Second Coming

Yep, I waited in line today. And yep, I totally underestimated the line and length of time it would take. I naively thought the lines wouldn't be as bad as last year since it wasn't new here, people would be more casual about it, etc. Duh. Finally got my phone after 5.5 hours in line and didn't have a working phone for another hour.

The time was mostly due to Apple and AT&T insistence that you can't leave the store without an activated phone. So you have a million people trying to all activate phones at the same time and Apple nor AT&T couldn't handle the traffic. It was taking anywhere between 15 and 45 minutes or more to purchase and go through the two-step activation process.

I'm a bit disappointed with Apple. One of the great things last year was that you could buy the phone quickly and easily and activate it at home. Sure there were activation issues last year, but I didn't have any and even if I did, I'd at least be in the comfort of my own home. That said, I waited in line with fun people and the Apple Store employees were there amazingly helpful selves.

On to the phone. I have not had much time to play with it, but I love the feel of it in my hand. It's a tad lighter than the previous iPhone, thicker in the middle, but with tapered edges which make it look & feel thinner. The interface is zippy and the 3G network is definitely light years better than the pokey EDGE network.

I have yet to download any Apps, but I'll definitely be trying a game or two and the MLB app. Cool stuff. This is going to be huge for Apple. The analysts have already doubled their estimate for iPhone sales next year to over 40 million.

iPhone 3G Details

Apple has posted a guided tour of the new 3G phone

AT&T has posted pricing, purchase and upgrade details.

AT&T has also posted videos on how to prepare for purchasing the 3G phone:
Existing AT&T Customers; New AT&T Customers.

AppleInsider details how to “hand down” your 1st Gen iPhone.


Some further details:

• Data plans are $10 more a month for 3G.


• There is still some confusion as to how MS Exchange mail will work. According to AT&T, if you want Exchange mail and ActiveSync you need to be on the “Enterprise Data Plan” which costs $15 more a month. But they’re not saying they will disable the feature for non-enterprise plans. There is no detail on this for 1st Gen iPhones.


• Text messages are no longer included as part of the data plan. They’re either 20 cents a message or $5/month for 200 messages, $15/month for 1500 and $20/month for unlimited. So don’t send me any text messages anymore. :-)


• Existing iPhone users will pay an $18 activation fee; new iPhone users will pay $36


• It is true that you have to activate the iPhone 3G before you leave the store, so I’m betting that July 11th will be nothing short of nightmarish. Certainly not the pickup an go of last year. Apple hasn’t announced when they will start selling the iPhone, but I’d be surprised if it was different than AT&T.