No more in-store activation UK?

[01jamcon]

I'm a bit baffled seeing the news about pre-signing up for an iPhone at home. I recently bought mine at a Carphone Warehouse shop the other day, and apart from taking down by details and scanning the separate sim card, the sales guy left my iPhone box fully intact allowing me to open and activate it at home.

Has this only happened recently because of the availability of pay-as-you-go iPhones? Oh, btw, I bought mine on a contract, not the payg. If at-home activation is now possible why didn't they offer it at launch? Or did they always have at-home activation here in the UK? Also, if its possible, why still no love for the Americans who need some grubby sales assistant to activate their iPhone?

 

[mrtrilby]

I bought mine from an O2 store a couple of weeks after the 3G was first released. I was given a sealed box to open and activate at home. Mind you, I'm not convinced the staff quite knew the procedure for selling them then.

 

[Aravintht]

i got mine from o2 the day it was released and there was no instore activation

 

[sparkyms]

did you sign the contract in store?

or did you select your contract within iTunes?

I think most people actually "activate" at home, but where I upgraded, all the contract work is done in store, so you don't take the phone and sit on it until it unlockable.

 

[Willis]

I bought my iPhone on launch day from the Apple Store in Sheffield, my local 02 stores (within 45 miles!!) had sold out.

I had to fill in a form, talk to an advisor from 02 and then have the genius 'help' me pt my sim card in the phone. I was allowed to open the packaging and take the phone out. Apparently they were told not to open the phone for the customers because some customers prefer to open themselves, and rightly so!

So yeah, that was the experience I had and I'm guessing what everyone should have done too. I prefer the old form of activation though, much much easier.

 

[01jamcon]

did you sign the contract in store?

or did you select your contract within iTunes?

I think most people actually "activate" at home, but where I upgraded, all the contract work is done in store, so you don't take the phone and sit on it until it unlockable.

Yes I did have to sign the contract in store and choose the tariff, but I meant more the opening the box and putting in the sim card bit. It sounds as if most UK buyers got the chance to do that at home, although there may have been some exceptions for early customers like Willis.

 

[sibruk]

I got mine at an O2 store a week after they were released, and they didn't activate it in store. They let me take it home boxed. I don't really understand the whole "in store activation" thing anyway - they've signed you up to a contract in store, which is all they really care about.

 

[iSimon]

Well the original iPhone was just sold as "a box" (in the UK at least) and you signed nothing in store at all - you took it home and activated it yourself. The intention was for this to be done in iTunes at which point the contract with O2 was set up, but of course some decided to activate / jailbreak / unlock etc. themselves and forego the O2 contract.

Since the iPhone 3G is more heavily subsidised than the original (and Apple/O2 weren't liking the fact that so many iPhones had been bought but not setup with an appropriate iPhone contract) they decided to do things differently with the iPhone 3G and have people sign up to a contract in store (and in some cases activate the handset too). Seems the policy on whether the handset is activated in store is a bit variable! Mine was an upgrade in an O2 shop and the box was left unopened for me to activate at home.