I have completed my mission to get the new iPhone and sell my old one. It was a bit of a mess, but I’d like to think I’m a stronger person for having survived.
The actual process of getting the new one wasn’t bad… I got up at 5am, showered, and made the pre-dawn drive over to the nearest AT&T store. One major difference is that this time only corporate stores were selling them, whereas the “authorized retailers” (including the one right down the street from me) had the first-generation ones. Last year I was about 12 in line; this time, I ended up being roughly 25.
It was a long wait. I got there at 5:30, and the doors opened at 8:00. Fortunately I was able to load up my original iPhone with some movie trailers, tv clips, and even a full-on movie to watch bits of during the wait. (Side note: I’d forgotten how much I loved Moulin Rouge!) It actually seemed to go by pretty quickly, believe it or not… It helped that the people around me were nice, and once the sun came up and people started getting antsy, we had good chit-chat conversations. I was the only person in our immediate area (meaning 3-4 people on either side of me) with an original iPhone, so I gave them the scoop on stuff.
I wasn’t in the first group to go in, but I made it in the doors at about ten minutes after they opened. It seemed to be going pretty quickly, but I discovered I was VERY lucky to be there so early. Right about the time they were getting me set up, the iTunes servers started getting overwhelmed with people on the east coast trying to activate their new little bundles o’ joy. They managed to activate my phone on the third attempt, and that was made easier by the fact that I was already a customer so it was a relatively quick process.
The catch? When I got home, I decided to be a nice guy and load the newest iPhone software on my “old” unit before shipping it out to my eBay buyer… and then I ran into the same problem that thousands of people in the Eastern and Central time zones were having: the iTunes servers just couldn’t keep up with all these activations. And since I was an IDIOT and didn’t empty the old one of all data first (my email, my address book, my Internet bookmarks and browsing history, the works) I couldn’t do ANYTHING but wait. My old phone was officially “bricked” as they say, held hostage by the inability to complete the software load. I couldn’t get into it to empty out all data until after it finished that process, so I had to WAIT.
It was six hours later that I finally got through, was able to finish the installation, then started the hour-long process of wiping it of all settings and content. Sheesh! I rushed to the Post Office and sent it on its merry way to its new owner… I hope the guy recognizes what a mess it was getting that damn thing set up for him!
So, early reviews? Most of what I LOVE about the new iPhone is actually just the new software. I adore many of the new Applications… It used to be that you could only access third-party stuff by visiting websites specifically built for iPhones. They had some neat web versions of Facebook, MySpace, Bank of America online banking, etc… But it was all web-based, and slow to load. Now, these new “App” versions are much better looking, cleaner designs, and they load much faster.
That improvement — the much faster wireless data rates — is the single biggest plus of the new equipment, over and above the software update. It’s also finally got GPS service, rather than relying purely on triangulating your position based on known cell-tower signals in your area. The physical design itself is also a bit prettier, and supposed to have better signal than the old one.
All in all, definitely worth it… Particularly since I was able to sell my old iPhone for the cost of a comparable replacement (but yeah, I spent the extra $100 to get the 16GB version… I loves me some TV shows and movies on muh phone!)
A very special shout-out to both Thijson and Asian Chris, who have finally seen the light and tasted the Kool-Aid. Welcome to the cult!
One note: If you’re reading this and you have an iPhone (original or 3G) hit me up about Applications! There are a ton of really great ones, and I’d like to compare notes.
