It's all done in store - you choose a price plan, they sign you up for the contract, activate, etc. Once you're at the front of the queue they take you to a computer and do it for you. This takes a while because they need to run all the credit checks. If I were you, I'd have an idea about what price plan you need beforehand, since you're a bit 'on the spot' otherwise. You walk out with a phone that is fully functional (ie, no need to even sync it with iTunes ever - unless you want music on it or something
).(for the geeks out there, the Macs were running VMWare Fusion, since the O2 activation website isn't Safari compatible!)
Also, I think the Apple people have been told that customers must open their own phones (since we get pleasure from the unboxing experience?). Mine started to open it, and then realised and passed it to me. She even asked me to pop open the SIM slot!
