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If you've checked out my Flickr photostream after my last post, then you'll know that I now have an iPhone as well. It turned out that the data portion of the rate plan was a flat $20 per month for unlimited access, and I could stay with a basic $40/month voice plan that would still be an improvement over the plan I had. The phone itself, of course, was an expensive purchase, but I was willing to pay a lot for all the cool features it offers. So I went ahead and bought one when they came out the last weekend of June.
I ran into trouble activating the phone. My existing phone plan was the same one I'd signed up to five years ago when I moved to Seattle; if I'd realized the trouble it'd cause, I would've made sure to switch to a new plan before trying to activate my iPhone. Instead, I had to call AT&T to get them to manually switch my account to a new one, and as AT&T were completely overwhelmed by the response to the iPhone, there were long waits on hold to do that.
However, I'm sure no one had a longer wait than I did: something must have gone wrong with the phone system, because I stayed on hold for twelve hours before finally giving up for that day. I'm sure I should have given up after an hour or two at most, and just tried calling again later, but I was getting the repeated messages to stay on the line, so it seemed that I was better to do so. Then, the longer it took, the more absurd it was and the more curious I was to find out just how long I could stay on hold. By the time I got to eight hours, I was certain that I wasn't ever going to get through, but I just couldn't resist letting it go and seeing whether I'd really get to twelve hours or whether the system would finally just disconnect me.
The next day, the first time I called I was abruptly disconnected shortly after getting into the hold queue, but when I called back I finally was connected with an operator immediately, and got my account straightened out and the phone activated. It turned out, though, that I still had a bit of trouble in store: when I got my phone bill this week, I discovered why it was a bad idea to stay on hold for twelve hours, as they charged me $250 for all that time. I had mistakenly thought it was a toll-free number. Regardless, it did not make sense to me that I should be charged for being stuck in their hold system, and when I called them about it they graciously agreed to reduce my bill by that amount, so it worked out in the end.
So far I've been very happy with the iPhone. It's exhibited quirky behavior on a few occasions, but overall it's worked well. I used it to jot down a few notes during the last concert I went to, which did help me when it was time to write the review. I love being able to pull out the phone and quickly look things up on the Internet, rather than having discussions left hanging because we don't know something. It's also very nice to have Google Maps readily available. It's nice to have all my contact information managed in the same Address Book that's on my Mac, and no longer have to remember to copy numbers out of my phone if I want to save them. And, of course, there's the camera:
I ran into trouble activating the phone. My existing phone plan was the same one I'd signed up to five years ago when I moved to Seattle; if I'd realized the trouble it'd cause, I would've made sure to switch to a new plan before trying to activate my iPhone. Instead, I had to call AT&T to get them to manually switch my account to a new one, and as AT&T were completely overwhelmed by the response to the iPhone, there were long waits on hold to do that.
However, I'm sure no one had a longer wait than I did: something must have gone wrong with the phone system, because I stayed on hold for twelve hours before finally giving up for that day. I'm sure I should have given up after an hour or two at most, and just tried calling again later, but I was getting the repeated messages to stay on the line, so it seemed that I was better to do so. Then, the longer it took, the more absurd it was and the more curious I was to find out just how long I could stay on hold. By the time I got to eight hours, I was certain that I wasn't ever going to get through, but I just couldn't resist letting it go and seeing whether I'd really get to twelve hours or whether the system would finally just disconnect me.
The next day, the first time I called I was abruptly disconnected shortly after getting into the hold queue, but when I called back I finally was connected with an operator immediately, and got my account straightened out and the phone activated. It turned out, though, that I still had a bit of trouble in store: when I got my phone bill this week, I discovered why it was a bad idea to stay on hold for twelve hours, as they charged me $250 for all that time. I had mistakenly thought it was a toll-free number. Regardless, it did not make sense to me that I should be charged for being stuck in their hold system, and when I called them about it they graciously agreed to reduce my bill by that amount, so it worked out in the end.
So far I've been very happy with the iPhone. It's exhibited quirky behavior on a few occasions, but overall it's worked well. I used it to jot down a few notes during the last concert I went to, which did help me when it was time to write the review. I love being able to pull out the phone and quickly look things up on the Internet, rather than having discussions left hanging because we don't know something. It's also very nice to have Google Maps readily available. It's nice to have all my contact information managed in the same Address Book that's on my Mac, and no longer have to remember to copy numbers out of my phone if I want to save them. And, of course, there's the camera:
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