Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Procuring the iPhone

After three years of working in an industry that labels you a professional pariah if you can't "bump" phones or shoot grainy, faded looking photos with your hipstamatic, I finally gave in. But man, it wasn't easy.

My wife didn't make it easy. Besides not wanting to spend the money, she claimed that the games on this new device would stunt our child's brain development and that we'd all be exposed to Silkwood amounts of radiation.

Apple didn't make it easy. Despite making $200 off of me, plus all the kickbacks they get from the app purchases, three separate stores in my state were completely sold out of the iPhone4, one full month after the product's release date. I could either order the device and wait 7-14 days, or I could check back daily, as they receive sporadic deliveries and sell whatever shows up on a first come basis. How is that a business plan?


AT&T didn't make it easy. Even though they're gonna take me for $114 per month over the next two years, every one of their locations in the greater Portland area also "claimed" to be sold out. The last store I tried gave me the same story, until I disclosed the part about me switching over from Sprint. Once I uttered those magic words, the clerk looked both ways to make sure no one saw him, and pulled the holy grail of modern communication out from under his register. He said it was his only one. That motherfucker!

And yet, here I go, diving into an abyss of chemotherapy, poor customer service and apps that help me geo-track my TV remote. Ah, iPhone. How did I get by without you?

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