The day before I was headed to CTIA, an amazing thing happened. I dropped my Blackberry into the toilet. ( Embarrassing!) I did not have a backup handset, and Sprint was less than helpful in helping me get a replacement sent to my hotel, so I decided to bail on Sprint. Sorry guys! (I was one of those million + defectors last quarter.) So, during a stopover in Philadelphia, I hopped in a cab, went to an ATT store and got a 16 Gig iPhone. (And, I feel compelled to point out that shopping in an ATT store is pretty rotten. The clerk wouldn’t let me leave without getting a credit approval (and since I was in Philadelphia it had some kind of location code attached to it) and when I went to activate through iTunes, it wouldn’t let me port in my Boston number. WTF? So, after 2 hours on a payphone at the Philadelphia airport, and getting nowhere with ATT, I just tried activate it like I had purchased it at the Apple store. I didn’t use the credit approval code and ported in my number like a charm! Now, after a little investigation, it seems like my erstwhile ATT store rep was trying to earn a little commission on my activation by demanding that I get a credit approval. I hate that stuff. He wasted my time, and I am glad that he got not credit for my activation. Long story short, if you want an iPhone, go to the Apple store.
2 months with an iPhone in my next post.