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ATT [and Apple] drop the ball: Please rant here

Was just there...

torid110 said:
on line at apple store 5th ave. A lot of angry people here because people have been waiting for 4 hours, and due to AT&T 's servers, they can't activate people after midnight. About 300 angry people here and apple store employees saying to wait in line until 700am when AT&T servers will be back online.
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I drove over to the 5th Avenue store thinking well it's got to be better than the other lines I'm hearing about. I was just there at about 12:45 or so nearing one.

What you are saying is true about the 7:00 am stuff as although i saw a line snaking about 400 people from what I glimpse, they had Apple reps out there saying no more people get on line. And start the new line for 7:00 am here (about 40 feet back on 58th street off of 5th Avenue.)

In store activation is absolute murder but Steve is keeping his word to AT&T and you won't be seeing a lot of non-AT&T contracted unlocked phones out there.

Really there's just no way so AT&T will be pleased but their system software is getting creamed, absolutely creamed.

And that's just like a telecom.

Tomorrow I renew the hunt but I avoided waiting in lines for hour and hours.
I feel really bad for folks as I understand it is Apple's policy to NOT TELL people how many phones are left at a location, even AT&T.

That is mind blowing in and of itself and reflected in the stories we've heard here.
 
Just got home from 5th ave apple store, no iphone in hand after 5 1/2 hours :mad: They handed out tickets and told people to come back after 7am tomorrow (today now :). They said to show the ticket and you will be able to bypass the line that will no doubt form tomorrow.

Also, regarding the huge clusterf### at the 5th ave apple store, the thing that gets me the most is the misinformation given by the apple employees. First they said that after 2:30am, they wouldn't be able to sell iphones because at&t takes down their activation servers and doesn't bring them up until 7:00am. Then someone comes out and says that they will stop selling at 12:00am, because at&t's servers were down and they were working to get them back up with no ETA. Because of this, they were processing around 5 people every half hour/45 mins. And to top it all off, during the confusion, there were a ton of line cutters. UGH!!
 
So I go to the apple store to find that there is a huge line. So I say okay, I'll wait. I wait about 6 hours and eventually enter the store. There were about 10 of us in the store and the rest outside were told to leave because the store was closing. So as we wait the servers go down. So we wait for about an hour in the store and no one is telling us anything. Then the manager comes up to us and tells us that he cannot sell us iPhones and we are told to leave. He says he cannot give us a waiver to come in the next morning to be at the front of the line.

We understood that you could not sell us phones. The least he could have done was give us a waiver or something, something that would compensate for our time. It was not like we were outside. We were in the store ready to buy.
 
Aside from the awful software glitches that delayed everything so much I was delighted with my purchasing experience.

First of all, I selected Los Gatos Apple store based on the posts on Macrumors in the get together thread- so we headed there even though Palo ALto and Stanford are closer.I knew we did not want to go the AT&T route because I am disgusted with them for their policy regarding eligibility- my feeling being that they should give an iPhone to anyone who wants to buy one and will sign a contract as the only source for these phones. They are making a lot more money for the plans, etc...ok, I will stop ranting- it has all been said.

Picked up three dozen donuts to hand out to tired hungry people in line...and we arrived there at 5am. We are about 45th in line- so I figured we were safe as it is a Silicon valley Apple store.

The people in line were great and the Apple staff was fabulous- I loved the way they all ran through the line high fiving and yelling to go in to the store! They also gave out not only water and coffee but bagels and donuts.

There is no way to say that the unfolding of events when the doors finally opened was anything but harsh- we were tired and to suddenly discover that /eligibility check/activations would take a looooong time was disheartening. Still, the staff (and customers) would cheer everytime someone went in or came out. We finally got in to the store at about 9- and our poor Apple guide had to trade activation eligibility palms scanners three times to get one that would work. Both my son and I were eligible (THANK YOU MACRUMOURS_NUFF SAID) and in fact we had AT&T web page on my husbands iPhone to show them if it had shown otherwise- so once we got in to the system our accounts were verified and the phones were in our hot little hands- our guy sweetly let us open the boxes, knowing how we had been waiting so long. He then took us over to the people who would activate us in iTunes only to find it was down and we would have to leave the store and hope to do it later- therefore then being without a phone anymore at all.

We really did not mind that much as we were able to get on and activate them as soon as we got home and then we all fell in to bed and passed out.

I am kinda shocked that the software of both kinds was so unprepared for this day.

However I loved the Apple store experience on the whole.

Two warnings though, which I will start a thread about- check your AT&T plans carefully- we have a five person family plan- the new iPHones only allow a $30 SHARED unlimited text plan in addition to the data plans and when I checked they were charging ALL FIVE phones $30 each so I have a customer service call ahead of me.

Secondly, in both our cases (16g black) the price was 299, the tax is 8.25, and the tax was almost $42- so another call is needed.

Hope you all get your phones and get to enjoy them soon- they rock!!!
 
meggieprice said:
Aside from the awful software glitches that delayed everything so much I was delighted with my purchasing experience.

First of all, I selected Los Gatos Apple store based on the posts on Macrumors in the get together thread- so we headed there even though Palo ALto and Stanford are closer.I knew we did not want to go the AT&T route because I am disgusted with them for their policy regarding eligibility- my feeling being that they should give an iPhone to anyone who wants to buy one and will sign a contract as the only source for these phones. They are making a lot more money for the plans, etc...ok, I will stop ranting- it has all been said.

Picked up three dozen donuts to hand out to tired hungry people in line...and we arrived there at 5am. We are about 45th in line- so I figured we were safe as it is a Silicon valley Apple store.

The people in line were great and the Apple staff was fabulous- I loved the way they all ran through the line high fiving and yelling to go in to the store! They also gave out not only water and coffee but bagels and donuts.

There is no way to say that the unfolding of events when the doors finally opened was anything but harsh- we were tired and to suddenly discover that /eligibility check/activations would take a looooong time was disheartening. Still, the staff (and customers) would cheer everytime someone went in or came out. We finally got in to the store at about 9- and our poor Apple guide had to trade activation eligibility palms scanners three times to get one that would work. Both my son and I were eligible (THANK YOU MACRUMOURS_NUFF SAID) and in fact we had AT&T web page on my husbands iPhone to show them if it had shown otherwise- so once we got in to the system our accounts were verified and the phones were in our hot little hands- our guy sweetly let us open the boxes, knowing how we had been waiting so long. He then took us over to the people who would activate us in iTunes only to find it was down and we would have to leave the store and hope to do it later- therefore then being without a phone anymore at all.

We really did not mind that much as we were able to get on and activate them as soon as we got home and then we all fell in to bed and passed out.

I am kinda shocked that the software of both kinds was so unprepared for this day.

However I loved the Apple store experience on the whole.

Two warnings though, which I will start a thread about- check your AT&T plans carefully- we have a five person family plan- the new iPHones only allow a $30 SHARED unlimited text plan in addition to the data plans and when I checked they were charging ALL FIVE phones $30 each so I have a customer service call ahead of me.

Secondly, in both our cases (16g black) the price was 299, the tax is 8.25, and the tax was almost $42- so another call is needed.

Hope you all get your phones and get to enjoy them soon- they rock!!!
Click to expand...

if your tax rate is 8.25%, then the amount of the taxes paid would be about $24.66. Which is typical for many states (luckily the state tax in my area is only 6.5%}.
 
Well.. I was on pay as you go plan.. I called ATT CS 3-4 times, was told that I could port number over to post -paid. Got through the line, went up there, lady tells me she can do it... Activates 3g on new number and then she can't port my number... SHE FREAKING TELLS ME AFTER THAT THEY CAN'T PORT ATT => ATT WTF? WHO THE HELL DESIGNED THEIR SYSTEM? JUST WOW! So now I am stuck with a stupid new number!


On another note... I got 16GB White.. The one I wanted! Guy working at the store told us at like 7 that they had 100 in stock with 50 - 8GB black, 25 - 16GB White and 25 - 16GB Black.
 
In my opinion I feel that a lot of this was to be expected. I had a feeling things wouldn't go smoothly. I waited till 2PM went into the Apple store in San Antonio, got rejected because of a discount code, had to leave the store and go to an AT&T kiosk to remove it, then went back into the store and bought my iPhone.

Was I annoyed? I was, but the :apple:store and AT&T made this work. It blows my minds that persons waiting inline to buy and iphone at 8AM when the rest of the world is buying the phone didn't expect some serious problems.

I expect to hear the same things at the next launch. Show some patience....;)
 
I just read that there is a line of 50 people at an Apple store today (Sat) at 8:00 am

If Apple employees start reporting in sick from exhaustion (some of the stories sound rather stressful) leaving the stores understaffed, this could be a problem.

There's just so much that they can require of them.

Hopefully, this is not going to happen.
 
I went to both the AT&T store, and then the 5th Ave NYC Apple Store yesterday.

I am still annoyed at how the AT&T reps acted (which, I'm sure, is them just doing their job). Anyway, I got in line around 8, and was maybe 80th. The reps never once told us that there were activation problems, nor would they give us an estimate on how many phones were in stock. After about an hour of nothing happening (the initial people to go into the store were still in there), a frustrated man in front of me said to the rep "Right here is 70", motioning to a spot on line in front of him. To which the rep finally replied, "Well, I can't tell you how many phones we do have, but it's way less than 70". And then he tried to convince us to stay in line and order phones.

So, I went and got breakfast, and the joined the 5th Ave line, right as it curved onto Madison. That was fun. Apple reps came by frequently to hand out information, answer questions, and give us water. The line was long; 2.5 hours just to get in, and then another 20 minute wait in the store. It was worth it though, and I had no problems getting my new phone (black 16GB). One odd thing is that I had gone to the AT&T store for a credit check earlier in the week and was given a reference number, yet the woman who helped me at the Apple store hadn't seen that before and didn't have a place to enter the number (maybe it's just an AT&T thing?). No big deal, it only took a minute to re-run the credit check.

Then, I did hang out for another 20 minutes trying to get my phone to activate, but it was ~2 PM at this point, and it just wasn't happening. I took my phone, and was able to activate it as soon as I got home. I love it!

And I just wanted to comment again on how friendly and helpful all of the Apple employees were. It could have been a stressful and frustrating experience, but everything ended up working out just fine. And I do think that AT&T needs to change their policies about what info they give to customers... with easy access to Apple stores it was silly for me to waste all that time at AT&T. Also, had I ordered a phone (which they said could take up to a week) only to find out that I could walk into an Apple store and buy one much sooner, I would have been rather upset.
 
I love Apple to death, and my MBP is the best thing i've ever owned and while i plan on getting an iPhone in the next couple weeks, i must say this has been really embarrassing for Apple.

There are like 4 or 5 att stores in my city, and they all got a maximum of 40 iphones. That means out of half a million people here, only 400 in got the new iphones (assuming all of the 16gb's sold... doubt it).

Then on top of that, NOBODY could activate it! LOLOL They finally sent two of my friends home and said to activate it on their own itunes (which they couldn't for hours on end). I would have to agree that a company that has differintiated itself from the crowd by putting PEOPLE in front of their products, have faily miserably yesterday. They didn't support the customer NOR the product. Bad move.

But alas... i'll still go buy one next week...
 
I feel sorry for the employees, as someone who works retail, trust me, we get the sheet end of the stick. Rude/Angry/Needy customers all the time, inconsistant days off (One week you'll get mon/wed off, the next tue/fri), inconsistant hours (One day 1:30pm to 10:00pm, next day 8:00 am to 5:00pm), and of course, working those hellish holiday weekends where everyone else gets to soak it up with their families.

People dont appreciate retail workers enough until they actually work it.
 
The only thing I'm mad about is having to go to the AT&T store because of my Corporate discount.

Granted I can understand the account is a little more complex. At least allow me to set-up the account through AT&T for the iphone and have a ticket / authorization form that allows me to purchase a phone from Apple.

I'm stuck waiting for my direct fulfillment order now :-(
 
I waited in line for 6.5 hours at the Clarendon, VA store. I got there at 2pm. I'm guessing they processed about 150-200 people in the total time I was there.

It's an outdoor mall, it was pretty hot, with direct sunlight. No water was provided. I have the sunburns to prove it (I went straight from work and never dreamed ATT/Apple would botch this launch so badly).

If I hadn't sold my iPhone in anticipation of purchasing the new one there's no way I would have waited in line. Hopefully Apple gets pummeled in the press and Steve Jobs loses a few billion in paper worth as punishment for this gaff.
 
Apple and/or AT&T really screwed up.

Thinking as an investor, what you ideally want is to hype it up, sell as many as you possibly can, and run out with one person not being able to buy it so that you can claim that you "sold out".

Instead, AT&T had so few that you could call them samples, no real quantities. And Apple can simply not process that many customers through the few locations they have.

One analyst claimed selling a million this weekend. Given the lack of stock, long slow lines, and countless people walking away, they will sell no where near that.

In my area I checked 3 AT&T stores. 2 big stores received only 20 iPhones yesterday and 0 today. A third in a mall received 40 yesterday and zero today. Area apple stores have not sold out but have 3-4 hour long lines which most people walk away from.

Figure 1800 AT&T stores, lets be generous and say 40/store average. Thats 72000. There are about 160 Apple stores. I've heard ours had 400 in stock yesterday. Assume they sell through, thats another 64000 for a total of 136,000 for opening weekend in the US. Not impressive at all.

And thats being generous.

They sold 270,000 last year in the us, so we're talking 1/2 of what they sold last year in the US, despite claims that supply was much better this year.

If they had the supposed supply, AT&T stores should have had 100-200 in stock per store.

AT&T stores in my area sold out in 1-2 hours. 2 hours out of 3 days of big selling weekend! I personally saw a steady stream of people at all hours going into the stores asking if they had any iPhones.

As an investor, I don't understand what AT&T and Apple are thinking. They either
1. grossly underestimated demand
2. thought they'd get better press to say they sold out. Which may have been true if they had sold out late in the day, not 1 1/2 hours into launch weekend.
3. Apple egotistically thought they could tell them all through their stores, not realizing how slow a process it would be.
4. They are really having supply problems. This had not been reported in the media.

I'm thinking that supply problems is a real possibility. If so, it seems unlikely that they will be able to meet the 10 million sold in 2008 as Steve Jobs had predicted. I'm not sure where the stock price will go from here based on what I see is a bungled launch, but so far, positive demand.
 
animenick65 said:
I waited in line for the good portion of an hour at the Seekonk ATT store. They only had 20 phones. The sales reps wouldn't give us still waiting in line a direct answer as to how many they had left. Thanks to them I wasted my time waiting in line when I could have been at the apple store. 20 phones on launch day? Seriously? Its a kick in the pants and after this I'm keeping my money and business with Verizon.
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You knew how popular this phone was and there was going to be lines EVERYWHERE. Why didn't you pack your sh*t up early like the majority of the people on here and get to your store so you didnt wait on line. I got to my store at 3AM and you know what... I have my phone next to me right now. From your post I can tell that you wanted the phone badly. If you wanted it that badly why didn't you show up early?? Sorry, just trying to put this in perspective for you.
 
dmelgar said:
Figure 1800 AT&T stores, lets be generous and say 40/store average. Thats 72000. There are about 160 Apple stores. I've heard ours had 400 in stock yesterday. Assume they sell through, thats another 64000 for a total of 136,000 for opening weekend in the US. Not impressive at all.

And thats being generous.

They sold 270,000 last year in the us, so we're talking 1/2 of what they sold last year in the US, despite claims that supply was much better this year.

If they had the supposed supply, AT&T stores should have had 100-200 in stock per store.

AT&T stores in my area sold out in 1-2 hours. 2 hours out of 3 days of big selling weekend! I personally saw a steady stream of people at all hours going into the stores asking if they had any iPhones.
Click to expand...

Your numbers are off. I've heard some of the flagship Apple stores received 1000's and some of the larger AT&T stores got 80+ each. Then factor in International sales and the numbers for Apple will either meet or exceed last years sales.
 
It took me 8 1/2 hours

I was not a happy man yesterday! That being said, I am very pleased with my purchase. Apple did everything they could to make those in line comfortable.

My problem was an error in the porting process that resulted in my having to activate the phone using a new number from AT@T. My old number got attached to my account, however, and I will have to make a trip today to the at@t store for a new SIM card.
 
Diode said:
Your numbers are off. I've heard some of the flagship Apple stores received 1000's and some of the larger AT&T stores got 80+ each. Then factor in International sales and the numbers for Apple will either meet or exceed last years sales.
Click to expand...

I don't think my numbers are way off. I saw the youtube video where an AT&T store got 80 phones. Thats why I assumed an average of 40 phones/store even though most of the stores in my area only received 20. Some 80s some 20s, 40 maybe reasonable as an average.

Regarding Apple, I was told the 400 was about half the 700 they received during last years launch. There is a limit to how many customers they can work through the long activation process. Apple optimistically was assuming 15 minutes per customer. I don't know how many customer they can work through at the same time. Can someone who bought at an Apple store comment?

And I never made a claim about international sales. Apple sold 270,000 in the US last year. If only 1/2 that this time, its hard to imagine that they could reach a million with overseas sales. Reports are that its sold out overseas as well.
 
im just so happy that i have to buy from att, who doesn't want to sell to walk in customers, and that my blackberry realized i hate it and decided to die today.
 
dmelgar said:
I don't think my numbers are way off. I saw the youtube video where an AT&T store got 80 phones. Thats why I assumed an average of 40 phones/store even though most of the stores in my area only received 20. Some 80s some 20s, 40 maybe reasonable as an average.
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AT&T stores did receive up to 100 phones in places, so 80 isn't the high. I think the average is a tad low, but you are right we can't assume 80-100 each either. That said, even the big stores last year had less than 10. No joke.

dmelgar said:
Regarding Apple, I was told the 400 was about half the 700 they received during last years launch. There is a limit to how many customers they can work through the long activation process. Apple optimistically was assuming 15 minutes per customer. I don't know how many customer they can work through at the same time. Can someone who bought at an Apple store comment?
Click to expand...

400 is definitely low. While the lines were long, and took much longer than they expected to handle, they were equipped with stock and people to handle a hell of a lot more than that.

Their early estimates for the stores were to be able to handle up to 100 customers per hour (depending on the customers accessories/etc). At the store I was at, they had roughly 15-20 reps running around doing nothing but helping iPhone customers 1-on-1 to get them what they wanted and get them processed. It took 15 minutes once I got a rep, and about 5 minutes of that was waiting to see if they had a certain accessory in the back, and having to re-enter customer data a couple times (mistyped it the first couple times).

While I think the 100 number was definitely optimistic, Apple was expecting to handle more customers than they were really able. Server issues on activation bit them on the butt, again, and slowed down the line considerably.

That said, at 2pm yesterday when I finally got in the store, they still had over a hundred white 16GB models left. That was just what I could confirm with my own eyes as a minimum. I didn't see if they were stacked deeper than I could tell/etc.

They were expecting the huge lines... the servers weren't. :|
 
ScottNWDW said:
if your tax rate is 8.25%, then the amount of the taxes paid would be about $24.66. Which is typical for many states (luckily the state tax in my area is only 6.5%}.
Click to expand...

Called today- turns out you pay 8.25 on the full price of $499. Ouch.
 
meggieprice said:
Called today- turns out you pay 8.25 on the full price of $499. Ouch.
Click to expand...

Depends on the state. I got charged tax at the $299 rate for a 16GB

dmelgar said:
I don't think my numbers are way off. I saw the youtube video where an AT&T store got 80 phones. Thats why I assumed an average of 40 phones/store even though most of the stores in my area only received 20. Some 80s some 20s, 40 maybe reasonable as an average.

Regarding Apple, I was told the 400 was about half the 700 they received during last years launch. There is a limit to how many customers they can work through the long activation process. Apple optimistically was assuming 15 minutes per customer. I don't know how many customer they can work through at the same time. Can someone who bought at an Apple store comment?

And I never made a claim about international sales. Apple sold 270,000 in the US last year. If only 1/2 that this time, its hard to imagine that they could reach a million with overseas sales. Reports are that its sold out overseas as well.
Click to expand...

Yea but you were basing you post as a stock holder. The stock holder could care less if the sale was national or international as long as the profit went into Apple's coffers.

I'll agree that the US sales might be lower then last years but total sales (What matters to the investor) should be higher as stated yourself.
 
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