Tale of the iPhone

iPhone, you are a magnificent bastard.

So I finally broke down and joined the legion of iPhone carriers. My girlfriend is Original Gangsta, as she has the 2G phone. I’ve seen her use it for quite a long time now, and I decided that it was cool and I should get one of my own. The only problem was that I was still under contract with Alltel. That cell phone company has amazing service, but the worst phones on the goddamn planet. All their phones are cheap plasticky crap from 4 fucking years ago. I mean, seriously, if they had at least one decent phone, they wouldn’t have been swallowed up by Verizon. Anyway, I digress…

My contract finally ended, and the next day I was all set to make the switch to AT&T so I could get an iPhone 3GS. The “S” is for “suck” — err, I mean “speed,” the S is for “speed.”

Since all of Apple’s shit is so insanely overpriced, I have never walked into an Apple store and purchased anything. In fact, the only Apple product I have ever owned was an iPod nano that I bought refurbished online. That was the only way I could afford it. I mean, seriously, you have to be a fucking trust fund baby to purchase any of Apple’s shit. Anyway, I digress again…

I thought it would be cool to finally be able to walk into an Apple store and actually buy something, instead of gawk. So, my girlfriend and I went to the mall. I thought it would be a piece of cake to set up a new AT&T account, and port over my old Alltel phone number. Well, that was a completely retarded idea on my part. I was forgetting that everyone is an idiot, and this would be damn near impossible to accomplish.

This total Apple fanboy spaz tried to help me buy my iPhone. The first problem is that the Apple store doesn’t have an AT&T rep. Rather, they use some kind of outdated portable computer system from 1987. So, Spazzy-McGee tried to set up my account, but he failed. He tried again, and failed again. After that it was his lunch break, so he left, and the store manager took over trying to set up my account. He failed twice. By that time I was getting really, really fucking pissed off. What was the goddamn problem?! The manager decided the best thing to do was to call AT&T directly, and set up my account over the phone. The lady on the phone asked to speak to me in order to verify some information. So, the manger handed me his iPhone, and I spoke to the lady for about 30 seconds, when… wait for it… the call was dropped.

Great fucking display of your technology, AT&T and Apple. Way to go. I turned around and stormed out, resolved to never try to buy anything in an Apple store again, because the retards that work there are fucking incompetent.

Next, my girlfriend and I drove to the closest AT&T store. We figured that doing it in person would work out. I hate going to cell phone stores, because you inevitably have to wait 3 hours to talk to anyone. I mean, what the fuck? Why do all cell phone stores have only two employees working at any given time, when there are 50 customers? Jesus tapdancing Christ. Well, after waiting about half an hour in line, I finally get to talk to some salesgirl.

I explained the situation to her. She said that it would be easy to set up my account and port over my Alltel phone number. “Which iPhone do you want?” she asked cheerfully.

“I want the 16gb black 3GS,” I replied, feeling relieved.

“Oh, we’re all out of that one. Would you like the 32gb instead?”

“Are you going to sell it to me at the 16gb price?”

“No.”

“Then, no, I don’t want it,” I said, feeling my anger rising once more.

The salesgirl was nice enough to explain to me that the version I wanted was flying off the shelves everywhere, and were nearly impossible to get. At that point I was thinking I should just stay with Alltel and get a fucking Blackberry. But my girlfriend, who wasn’t blinded by rage, asked the salesgirl to call other AT&T stores to see if any of them had one. She did. The first two stores were sold out, but the third store had four available.

Success! The only problem was that we had to drive another half an hour to get there. No problem. We jumped into my honey-wagon and took off down the road. We get to the shopping complex where the AT&T store was located, and drove around… and around… and around.

What the fuck?! Where’s the store?!

My girlfriend pulls up the phone number on her iPhone, and contacts them. They are in the back corner of the complex. We drove around the complex for another five minutes before we finally found it. It was buried in the back corner by a bunch of empty storefronts, with a ridiculously tiny AT&T logo printed on the window.

It’s no fucking wonder they had four 16gb iPhones, it was nearly impossible to find the goddamn store. We went inside, explained the situation to the salesman, and he said, “No problem.”

He was able to port over my old Alltel number, and hook me up with the iPhone I wanted, which a few minutes before, I believed was an impossible task. I walked out of the store 10 minutes later, happy. All told, the endeavor took three hours to complete. Was it worth it?

Yes. Yes it was. The iPhone 3GS is fucking incredible. The apps are great, the texting is fun, the internet is amazing, the signal quality is… oh fuck me. The call quality kind of sucks. I actually had a call drop while I was standing in my back yard. I mean, what the fuck? Overall, the pros outweigh the cons, and I am completely satisfied with my purchase. Even though I almost had to murder someone to get it.

To rephrase AT&T’s current slogan: “The iPhone, the world’s greatest phone, on America’s worst network.”

(P.S. I can’t believe AT&T had the fucking nerve to charge me a $36 activation fee after I bought a two-year contract, and bought a $200 phone. Fucking greedy assholes.)

Verdicts:

Apple Store Employees: Shitty

AT&T Service Quality: Shitty

iPhone 3GS: Awesome