iPhone: I'm officially pissed off

I've had the iPhone for nearly 4 hours now, and can't do anything with it. I went to iTunes to activate it (had to do some updating, no big deal, but took a while) and everything seemed to be going fine. After the final activation OK I got a message saying it may take a while to activate - they'd be in touch.

What? Wasn't AT&T anticipating this?

I got an email an hour later saying:

Phone service is scheduled to be disconnected on your current phone at or after 8:29 PM EDT on June 30. Please check your email and be prepared to reconnect and activate your iPhone before that time. Please call 877-800-3701 if you'd like to make other arrangements.

I called, got a very nice woman who tried to be very helpful. She got my SSN, my driver's license number, all the usual personal info. Could she do anything? No. She did give me a new number to call, though. I called it, and was told to enter the number I'm trying to transfer to AT&T. It wasn't recognized. I tried again. Nada. So I had to call the original number again. Went through the same thing, gave all the info again, only to hear "yep, it's going to be 6-24 hours before you can activate."

I don't care about the number. Can I use the iPod? No. The Calendar? Datebook? Anything? No. No. No.

So here I sit. I got wrapped up in the hype, which was totally fun. I paid $200 to get a spot at the front of the line. And now I can't do a damn thing until sometime tomorrow. Maybe even tomorrow evening.

I am not happy. I've been forced to marry AT&T, and I already want out.

See followups:
iPhone: still crippled, but getting there
Update: Latest post is iPhone: iCal glitch and why it took me 22 hours to set up my iPhone

See also
Number 15 in line for the iPhone in Austin
I found my iPhone line-waiter :)

Comments

[Marie]

did you have to port your number? is that why there's such a delay, or is it because AT&T just didn't prepare well?

[Julie Gomoll]

Yeah, I'm porting from Verizon. I'm ok with waiting for the number. I'm frustratet that I can't do *anything* with the phone while I wait, though. Hell, I can't even play with the preferences :(

[Dan G]

Bummer Julie. I didn't have any problems activating mine though I was already a Cingular customer so the whole phone number thing wasn't an issue.