MacDailyNews reader continue to seethe as their attempts to give Apple and ATT money for new iPhone 4 units and “AT&T service” plans, which in major cities means pretty much “no bars for you,” fail miserably.
During iPhone pre-orders which began today, it seems that AT&T’s capacity has been exceeded. Again. And water is wet.
Apple’s website, although sluggish, seems to take the user’s info, but when Apple has to check with AT&T to determine upgrade eligibility, the process fails.
In our opinion, as the image above might indicate, AT&T is hopelessly overmatched and incapable of handling Apple’s iPhone business. They have no ability to adequately predict demand. They may also be hopelessly cheap in addition to being bungling amateurs. Inept AT&T, with their cobbled-together rebranded Cingular network, are holding back Apple iPhone sales and have been tarnishing the Apple brand for years now. Apple needs to add to their U.S. carrier lineup yesterday.
Apple and AT&T stand to make billions of dollars off iPhone 4 customers. For apple to not have adequate capacity or not have forced AT&T to have adequate capacity to take orders from current and new customers for hours now and counting is bush league.
But, don’t let our opinion cloud yours: Tell us below what you think of AT&T Mobility.
Now’s your chance; you never know, maybe somebody at Apple is actually paying attention as they, through their misguided exclusive-U.S. carrier choice, once again frustrate their customers, new and potential, to no end.
While you’re at it, let Apple CEO Steve Jobs know how you feel, too:
Will say it again: this experience sucks, but overall, I am pleased with coverage and routine ATT services. However, I do believe Apple should open up the iPhone to other carriers.
@Foogle
U Say, “Think brevity”. I say FU.
ATTENTION: AT&T;helped me out today!
I didn’t fall in the early upgrade group because I had recently changed phone numbers (thus renewing my contract) a few months ago on my OLD iPhone 3G.
I walked into an AT&T;store today, explained my situation, and they automatically upgraded me and allowed me to pre-order my iPhone 4.
Their servers might be crap, and their cell towers might not work as often as I’d like, but the Austin Five Oaks store deserves accolades for customer service.
Cheers!
Whiners, spoiled brats, you’ve got the gamut among the posters here. None have a single clue how to build out a network that has grown more than 5000% in three years. Infrastructure under siege requires money and time to catch up. ATT’s capital expenditures ON ITS NETWORK is greater than Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint combined.
The iPhone on those networks wouldn’t cause disrupts in service, those networks would collapse.
I tried to get my pre-order online al morning and it did not work. There was a AT&T;store like 10 minutes away from my house. I to go there and do it. There was a little bit of a wait, but no line. Everyone there was pre-ordering too. Finally I was waited on. The only thing was that they were having problems as well and the manager told her workers to reboot their computers before taking anymore customers. After that he waited on me and put my pre-order in without a problem. I guess I was lucky. It is going to be delivered at my house on the 24th. I did not want to take a chance and go back to the store. So all and all it was not that bad for me to pre-order the iPhone. As far as service with AT&T;, I did not have any problems with calls or anything over the past 3 years with my original iPhone. I am a happy customer, but I know there are persons out there that has not been as luck as I.
But going back to what was said by MDN, Apple should have beefed up their systems and also should have made sure that AT&T;was prepared too. Haven’t they learned from the past times?
att reset my wireless account for some reason, so I had to re-register my wireless number. It took me a few attempts to do this (server overload). Fortunately, I ordered my iphone through apple’s new app and it worked seamlessly.
Here in Edinburgh, UK, I was able to pre-order on apple.com/uk at 8am. I’ve chosen a 32gb iPhone 4, which is £599 ($700) as it’s unlocked. I can then get an O2 12m Simplicity SIM (600min, unlimited texts, 500mb cellular data, unlimited WiFi) for £20 p.m. ($30). Total yearly cost £840 ($1200). But the iPhone is unlocked from the word go, important for me as I travel to Europe a lot and hate roaming charges!
You can blame AT&T;all you want, and in fact they are likely the problem, but Apple has known all along that AT&T;would need to be able to handle this load yet proceeded today obviously without adequate testing. So apple is to blame too. It’s not as though there are several carriers and AT&T;is the only one to screw up….they are the EXCLUSIVE carrier thus Apple had a responsibility to make sure they were up to the task. Bad day for Apple, IMO.
ATT is fine, other than activation issues. The idiots should have rented some more capacity for this.
Other than that, I’m just pissed that I can’t get a white one. So I’m not preordering today (which may be a blessing is disguise…)
2 words. It blows.
I have always defended AT & T in the past because I don’t think they ever imagined that the iPhone would be so popular and it caught them flat footed. However their lack of action to recover from their mistake is disappointing and potentially disastrous for their business. They are giving me the impression that they are arrogant and they don’t believe that they will loose many customers once Apple offers the iphone on other carriers. They need to recover from this by doing something that would bring them into the good graces of their customers. Free tethering or SMS would be a good start.
I was finally able to upgrade to an iPhone 4 (reserved for pickup) using the “Apple Store” app — it took less than a minute. My attempts at the Apple website all failed, often after the AT&T;eligibility check was successfully completed. Clearly Apple is generating at least part of the screwup.
@Ubermac
I resent your condescending dismissive statement. This has nothing to do with a need for instant gratification. Rather, this is about following through on one’s promises. The first time the iPhone was released, this sort of thing was annoying but understandable. Now on the 4th go ’round and we still find this company woefully unprepared, and the frustration it has wrought is perfectly understandable.
You need to get off your high-horse, and stop looking down your nose at people. You clearly have no idea what you are talking about, you daft pillock.
BTW – I did eventually get my pre-order off. I did as another suggested and went to AT&T;’s website. Once I got the P1015 error, I just hit refresh until it went through. It did so on the fourth attempt.
Who cares about AT&T;?
How about the service! I dropped a call 5 times driving down the I-25 in Denver CO in 7 minutes. When are we going to Verizon?!
My girlfriend and I went in to pre-order 2 iPhone 4s at an AT&T;store. The system was down, so we had to do everything hand-written. It took forever. Finally, the process was almost done, and some other guy walked behind and glanced over the guy helping us and says, “We can’t use that credit card.” It was a check card linked to my bank account. I have a PayPal card linked to the same account, but I need to transfer funds to it to use it, which takes 3-4 days.
For some reason, they could use the PayPal card but not my bank card. And why wouldn’t they tell me that before I waited so long to go through the whole process, and CHARGED the card twice (or so I thought…)?
Now here’s the icing on the cake. There are not one, not two, but THREE charges on my bank card now, all for $199. Who knows how long it’ll take to get those reversed and cancelled. It made my bank account shut off my card, another inconvenience.
Now I’m waiting to be refunded the money from the jokers at AT&T;so I can transfer it to the jokers at PayPal, wait another 3 days, and finally give the money back to the jokers at AT&T;.
What a friggin’ mess.
Actually, both Apple and AT&T;are to blame. There were times that I got past the AT&T;verification test only for Apple to expire my session or complain that it could not process my request. There was one time I got close to adding the iPhone to my cart only for Apple to nuke my session.
I can’t wait for an iPhone 4, but I WON’T sign another contract with AT&T;.. I have 5 bars of 3G service, talking to another iPhone user also with 5 bars and our 15 minute conversation will get dropped at least 4-6 times. This happens DAILY. I only had about 5 dropped calls in 5 years of service with Verizon.
Yes, Verizon has crappy customer service, but they have an awesome network. Much less the need to have to call and deal with them.
I will hold on to my 3G, and wait, hoping for a Verizon iPhone.
Kent
I like your long post. I agree completely. I have not been able to get thru either ATT or Apple but I think I may survive. Don’t think it will give me an ulcer either. If not today, maybe tomorrow I can order, or maybe the next day. Hoop de friggen dee this is not a big deal. Lighten up already folks.
My experience in ordering an iPhone 4 32GB today:
After being being told on 1-800-my-apple that they couldn’t take my phone call at this time (9:00am EST), I went to the Apple website to place my order. I watched the spinning fan for 20 minutes before quitting the site. I drove to the local AT&T;store and had my order placed in less than 15 minutes, after a 10 minute wait in line. Not bad, considering the horror stories elsewhere on this site. But…
I got back to my office and read an AT&T;email that stated: “The link below will tell you everything that you need to know about your new phone:
http://www.wireless.att.com/support/setDevice.do?dest=tutorials&universe=att&make=Apple&model=IPH+4+32GB+BLK
When I went there, there was no selection for the Apple iPhone 4, only the 3 previous versions. There’s just no excuse for that, AT&T;….I mean NO EXCUSE!
AT&T;doesn’t have a clue. The sad thing, I doubt any of the carriers have a clue.
My emails to ATT/Jobs:
Today I was refused the pre-purchase of an iPhone 4 at a AT&T;store on 5188 West Waco Drive, Waco, Texas, despite the salesman, Daniel, telling me I was eligible for a discount upgrade. (I already knew this from accessing my account online at att.com.)
Daniel explained to me without a REAL credit card (my card is a debit card that my bank, Bank of America, backs as a REAL credit card), I was not an acceptable AT&T;customer. (Okay, he didn’t use “acceptable,” but that was his attitude). I cautioned the gentleman that refusing to allow me to order an iPhone would cost AT&T;to lose me as a customer. I have been with AT&T;for nearly three years. I have not been ecstatic about my service, but assumed the occasional dropped calls or disrupted data service was not much different no matter what carrier I subscribe to. While I have used the service just for the iPhone, I promoted sales to friends and families that it was worth whatever bad things they had heard about AT&T;to get the iPhone – and some have actually taken my advise and purchased iPhones.
Well, you know what? There are competitors out there now for touch smartphones. And while Apple’s OS is far superior, and I have a library of content that will not transfer to other devices, I am leaving AT&T;and Apple as well because of this continued inability of AT&T;to act responsibly with its consumers combined with Apple’s continued arrogant attitude toward consumers that don’t fit their upper class, cookie-cutter target.
I’m sorry, I just can’t buy the excuse it’s because you can’t precharge my account because it’s not a real purchase since it’s a debit card and not a REAL credit card. I have seen holds on my bank account for hotel rooms and gasoline purchases from businesses that don’t process debit cards. In my opinion, specially from Daniel’s attitude, and something else he said, I believe AT&T;’s policy of only taking REAL credit cards because they fear being stuck with iPhones that customers don’t pick up from reserve. Which is ludicrous, of course. AT&T;’s iPhone exclusivity has allowed it to get away with continued fumbles of iPhone launches and other service issues (not my experience, just occasional drops and disruptions, but from what’s in the news and online, well, ya’ll know what I’m talking about). What Daniel said was this: “WE may have to charge you an ADDITIONAL $199 on the 24th.” That of course implies there is no problem putting a ‘hold’ of $199+tax. The issue is having to charge me if I refuse to allow you to charge me again for the delayed availability of the phone because the previous charge can’t be cleared off for however many days of processing it takes to cancel that charge…not to mention to payment processor’s charge to AT&T;for doing so (oh, wait, I did mention it…sorry).
Be assured, I will be verifying AT&T;’s claim that my card cannot have “pre-pay holds” applied to my balance with my bank. If that is the issue, then some fault by AT&T;will be negated. But as customers eligible to purchase the iPhone, and who has a card of record that makes online payments, AT&T;could with no expectation of loss accept reservations for the day of release without requiring an actual pre-purchase. Because of the high demand for the product customers who didn’t pick up their reserved products by a certain would simply lose the reservation and the product would still leave the store that day! Apple had a similar policy for the release of the iPad: If you pre-ordered it and didn’t pick up by 3 pm, or 5 pm, then Apple would sell it.
In spite of spending about twenty minutes on the phone with customer reps that were as unyielding as Daniel, there appears to be no solution other than for me to retire my service when my contract ends on August 30, this year.
In addition, despite being an exclusive Apple user (except at an occasional job or two) since 1988, and a proud Apple promotor to friends and family and sometimes total strangers, I will be selling my Macbook Pro and iPad, replacing them with admittedly inferior usability, but oh well. I’m familiar enough with Windows from a couple of jobs, including my current one with the VA, that I can easily adapt. I will lose some of the movies and music that I have purchased over the years, but again, oh well. Like in 1984, by George Orwell, when you go against the rules of tyrants and act independently, there’s a price to pay. How ironic that the very image Apple played against in 1984 with the introduction of the Mac, they have now become because of exclusivity.
Rest of assured I am going to pursue every form of recording this complaint and issue that I can find available – starting with friends, families and coworkers…and those occasional strangers. DON’T BUY ATT OR APPLE!
Sincerely,
[Handsome Smitty]
They did a wonderful job today considering the traffic that went through both companies. Same would of happened with any carrier that was launching the best phone out there. Funny verizon didn’t have any problem with the droid cause they didn’t sell anywhere near what went on today. AT&T;did a dam good job and yes they sold out so it guess it wasn’t all that bad now was it???
Americans want instant everything. Some things are worth waiting for. Take a walk – look at the scenery. Relax – live a little.