The Adventures of Andy and the iPhone (with photos!)

I did it! I did It, I got the iPhone!!!

In your face Sprint!

Now for those of you who missed earlier episodes I have abandoned the Sprint Corporation over a matter of twenty dollars. So because Sprint would not discount the purchase of a phone I have switched carriers just so I could have the latest gadget and be the envy of all my nerdy friends.

So the adventure begins Friday when I left work at 4 PM to get in line at the AT&T store. Fortunately the store is just across the street so I went home picked up my camera, stopped off at the ATM. That’s when I hit my first obstacle.



The sidewalk was freshly cemented so I had to do just a bit of jay walking to get across Sawmill Road. Okay htat was a pretty lame obstacle, but what’s a story without conflict? I ended up in line at about 4:20.



As you can see I was not first in line.



I did end up making friends with my fellow gadget geeks. There was a security guard on site but the crowd was very well behaved. We all knew what we were there for, and for $500 - $600 a purchase (before optional accessories and activation fee) you’re there to drop some coin, not start a fight.



Speaking of which I had a dream earlier in the week that I had gotten in line and someone cut in front of me and got the last iPhone. In my dream I just about started a fight.

The AT&T staff was very nice. They even brought out cold drinks for people in line.



The security guy made sure we weren’t spilling over into the parking lot and made a count of people. I was about #28 and probably the first person attempting to get the 4 GB model. This just proves that I’m very secure about the size of my hard drive. They eventually gave everyone a fact sheet to fill out about why we were at the AT&T store today (duh!) what service you were going to buy etc… About 6:30 I had made it to the front of the line and was very excited.



They had a list of names and as one person left they would let another iPhon iPhanatic in the store. Inside they let you play with a demo unit. Here’s a picture of the cute girl in charge of letting you play with the display models.



She took a picture of me finally getting my hands on one!



And I took a picture of myself on the demo phone.



It really is very cool, and all the features from the commercial work just like that in real life. From the demo they let you pick out accessories. The only one I liked was a rubber sleeve for the phone, but usually that stuff is cheaper at Wal Mart than at the actually phone store so I passed.

About 7:30 I had my I Phone and was ready to plug it in. Unlike traditional phones there is already software on your computer to run it. I unpackaged everything and was impressed with what the iPhone comes with. First there’s the charger, but I was happy to see a cradle come with it. That’s such a nice feature. There’s also a set of earphones with a microphone so you don’t have to unplug to answer the phone.



The box itself is beautiful. It’s a glossy black finish with a nice organizational holder for each of the included items. There’s even a nice piece of cloth to wipe off all finger prints you can see ended up on there immediately.

The phone is small and about the size of a Motorola Q, or a late model Compaq iPaq. It’s bigger than the standard flip phone. Oh and I’m not abusive to my phones that’s just 2 years of jingling around in my pocket with keys, coins and anything else that might end up in there.



Setup was pretty simple. But I needed to do it on my desktop rather than my laptop because I don’t have XP service pack 2 on my laptop. (long unrelated story) All you do is plug in the iPhone into your PC, turn on iTunes (make sure you have the latest version) and it recognizes the new device. Then it prompts you put in your phone number, your account number and a few other items like billing information and voila… your phone is still locked!

What?!?!

Well since I was transferring my number from Sprint they emailed me saying:

AT&T is now processing your activation.You will receive an email confirmation once your activation is complete.

I got that email about 1:07 today and boy was I excited! I quickly ran upstairs, plugged back in and iTunes started the registration process. When it was done the phone was unlocked. I made the maiden call to my mom who said I sounded like I was in a tin can, but eventually sounded better.

Next it was off to YouTube to view a friend’s mini movie. Unfortunately I don’t think that all YouTube videos are available on the iPhone so I looked up Van Halen. It took a while because the typing program thought “Halen” was a typo for “Galen” But eventually I got there and here’s a photo of me watching the video for “Jump”. The only disappointing thing is that when watching videos the speakers are on only one side giving you only a mono sound. This is easily resolved by plugging in headphones.



Next I used the wireless web to look at my blog, looked up directions to my house (even though I’m already there) on Google Maps and read my email online!



There’s still plenty to figure out and I don’t think I’ll be getting any incoming calls until around 9:13 tonight but still it’s a really cool device. Everything they say it can do it does and I’m sure a lot more. My next step is to put some music and videos on there.

The guys at work were telling me that I’d come in Monday as a total Mac convert. I said probably not but don’t be surprised if I show up in a mock turtleneck and jeans like everybody’s favorite iCeo Steve Jobs.



Come to think of it, I do look good in black!