2008: iPhone Odyssey

So, today was the day. After a text from O2 yesterday, I know it's going to be difficult to get a phone at all, but I'm willing to give it a shot at my local store.

07:05 Left the house, headed for the Didcot O2 store

07:30 Arrived at the Orchard centre in Didcot and walked to the O2 store. A small queue had formed - 15 people were already waiting in line. The general mood was good and people were chattering away. Quite a nice, sunny morning, but a bit of a cold wind. All but one were male, about half seemed to be upgrading from 2G iPhones.

07:45 I was officially given queue number 16 by one of the O2 staff. They were already saying I probably wouldn't get a 16GB version.

07:50 Everyone was asked to confirm they had proper ID and required documents - to speed up the process.

07:59 First group of 8 people let into the store.

08:15 Told that the systems had crashed. They were waiting to process the 8 people who were already in store.

08:20 Told that they were now running on contingency systems - filling out paper forms for data entry later on.

08:30 Cups of water were distributed to the queue. Still, no one had emerged with a phone.

08:35 O2 iPhone T-shirts were given out to anyone who wanted them after one staff member rummaged in the back room to find them. They are a lovely shade of blue.

08:40 Told that there had been a fire at one of the processing centres which was delaying everything. Nothing was going through and everything was on hold.

08:45 First sign of someone emerging with a phone. 3 more people were let in the store.

08:55 Over the last 10 minutes, several people have left the line. One man emerged from the store, annoyed because they insisted on a credit or debit card for the credit check, and he had neither. He defected to Carphone Warehouse up the street, another queuee followed suit.

09:05 Told that processing is actually starting to happen now.

09:15 I was let into the store

09:25 I was ushered over to a table and filled out the contract. I had all the correct ID and information and so it was fairly quick. Selected the tariff, declined the insurance and my new iPhone (8GB) was whisked from the back room onto the desk. A bit more form filling and several signatures later and I'm off to get my accessories and to pay.

09:45 Leave the store with my shiny phone

However, it's not quite that simple. Because they can't run the credit checks, the phone is not activated. I have to wait for a phonecall to tell me that they've processed my details and accepted me as a customer. I was told they _hoped_ this would be this afternoon. In the meantime I have a device which isn't particularly useful (but at least I can charge it).

From what I could glean, it seemed they had 22 iPhones in total. They were quite cagey about how many of these were 16GB, although I did hear the number 4 mentioned. The comment from one staff member was that they had more stock that most of the other shops in the area - not exactly impressive. The staff were friendly and helpful and doing their best. They were obviously frustrated by the total failure of all the support systems and were trying to make the best of it all. Most of the people waiting were vary patient and understanding. It didn't prevent the general feeling of chaos in the shop. O2 should be ashamed of itself for failure to prepare on such a grand scale.

[12:05]
After some scratching of my head and a quick search on the net, the SIM is now installed. Phone is now charging since there's not much else I can do with it.

[15:55]
No word from O2. Just tried to call the store and got no answer. Am rather reluctant to try syncing to iTunes until I know the SIM is active.

[16:08]
Just spoken to the store. The systems are still down and he doesn't think they'll be up again today. The store manager is going to go through and process all the contracts tomorrow morning. Until then I have a useless, if attractive, slab of plastic and glass.

[17:05]
Have tried to sync with iTunes several times, but keep getting network timeouts - guess the servers are busy. My iPhone is stuck with a "please connect to iTunes" screen