Shame on AT&T for forcing people to buy things they didn’t want. I called each of the stored listed in the post and they all refused to comment. I did however finally get someone on the phone at the Seattle store that admitted to the accusations and said they were not doing it anymore. Then I asked him how many iPhones they had in stock right now and he said “none” to that I said, then of course your not selling accessories with the iPhone anymore since you have no iPhones to sell. It all makes sense. Apple will of course take care of this. I hate it when you go to buy a new gaming system and are forced to buy a bundle, of which I will not. This is the same kind of crap! Nice job AT&T.
The two worlds of Apple vs. AT&T
Last night, at the last minute, I succumbed to iPhone lust as I passed a line in front of an AT&T store on Broadway in the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
The line was less than a hundred, and it seemed for a while that the wait might not be too long. Wrong! The employees at the AT&T store at 2195 Broadway were in no hurry. In fact, a woman employee at the door seemed annoyed by all the people in line and would offer no information about wait times or availability of the iPhones.
But one thing she did make certain, this AT&T location was closing at 11 p.m., line or no line. There were no promises to service those who had been waiting for hours.
A friendly restaurant next door handed free samples of a mango drink and even offered take-out food, but not one AT&T employee ever came outside to interact with waiting customers or to explain the situation.
At about 9 p.m. a customer who finally got in the store spilled the beans that all the 8 GB models were sold out. AT&T remained silent. At this point, several of us hopped cabs to head to the nearby Apple
store on 5th Ave. There, we saw the other side of this take of two American companies.
Even though the line was longer than that at AT&T, the wait was short — less than 15 minutes. Friendly Apple employees stood by with wireless credit card terminals taking orders. The process took only
minutes. Leaving the store, a cheering row of Apple workers high-fived new iPhone owners.
Day one revealed what all Apple aficionados fear. That AT&T, through the depths of its incompetence, could derail the iPhone.
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July 3rd, 2007 at 7:09 am
This is just more of the same bad behavior from cell phone companies and tellcos in general. The best thing apple did was allow users to setup their iPhone through iTunes and get them out of the AT&T store! I can see why Apple settled for one carrier. That deal is probably what it took for them to have control over the activation and make the iPhone a complete Apple experience.