Live Blog: PCW Unboxes and Sets Up Our First iPhone
I'm just back from the AT&T Wireless store in Dedham, Massachusetts. I spent $628 after taxes for the 8GB iPhone. I was told there was a "strict" 14-day return policy and 10 percent restocking fee. That's a lot of money... but at least I got one.
More very shortly.
Here are a couple first shots of the iPhone unboxed.
Moving on to taking the iPhone out of the bag...
Taking it out of the box was the easy part. Let's see how easy it is to activate.
Stay tuned..
I just plugged in the iPhone into my Windows Vista PC. My PC recognized the iPhone and my iTunes software launched. iTunes 7.3 "sees" the iPhone and placed a little icon in the iPhone Device menu.
Apple's iTunes is stepping me through activation. Right now AT&T is asking the questions about what plan I want and if I want to transfer service from an existing AT&T Wireless account to the iPhone. I'm choosing to set up a new account.
So far pretty slick and easy setup.
After Apple prompts me for my existing iTunes user name and password AT&T appears to be proceeding with the "credit check" part of the activation. I can only assume AT&T is using my credit card on file with iTunes to verify who I am and my credit history. Who me, nervous?
I passed.. I'm glad they don't give you letter grades. After verifying that I read Apple/AT&T's 11,785-word license agreement by checking the "I agree" box I hope I'm nearing the end of this process.
Activation is complete! The entire process of plugging in the iPhone and activating took me about 45 minutes. But to be fair I was taking a lot of screen shots and taking a few pictures. My guess is it would of taken about 20-to-25 minutes for most people who already have iTunes accounts and are running iTunes 7.3 software pre-installed.
Getting in Sync with the iPhone
I'm moving on to syncing my iPhone with Vista's Windows Calendar, Windows Mail, and iTunes music, pictures, and video content.
As I'm syncing I'm being prompted by iTunes that it will sync with either Windows Contacts (which I have plenty of) and Yahoo Contacts. But the iPhone doesn't recognize my Windows Calendar (which I actively use) and delivers the message "No supported calendar application can be found."
This is my first disappointment with the almighty iPhone.
My e-mail account used in Windows Mail was identified by the iPhone. However, the iPhone didn't pre-configure the e-mail account. The iPhone only recognized my e-mail provider RCN. The iPhone prompted me to go into the iPhone's Settings section and configure my e-mail account with user name and password information.
On the subject of syncing, other aspects of the iPhone's syncing are not going as well as I'd like. First off, the iPhone feels very limited in storage when compared to my 40GB iPod that I'm used to. I have to keep reminding myself the iPhone is a phone with only 8GB of storage.
I'm not sure who to blame ? myself, iTunes, or the iPhone - on another syncing issue that has cropped up.
I'm trying to sync Video content with the iPhone. iTunes is showing me a number of "Movies" to sync to iPhone. One of those movies is "Deja Vu" which I purchased through iTunes last night. I also have some old copies of the television show "The Office" on my PC purchased some time ago. Despite that fact that iTunes allows me to select three episodes of "The Office" to be synced, the iPhone will only sync "Deja Vu".
I'm receiving an error message from iTunes telling me the episode of The Office "could not be found." This seems counterintuitive given iTunes is displaying the episodes to be synced.
(connecting to my home Wi-Fi account was very easy)
This music phone image is to point out how un-sexy the iPhone can be when not working perfectly. You will notice all the album art that is supposed to accompany track titles is missing. You'd never think it was possible for the iPhone to look drab from the iPhone commercials.
Alas, I'm nearing the end of my syncing with the iPhone. Photos, mail, music, podcasts, and movies are now part of my mobile phone. That's pretty cool.
I'm going to leave it up to the rest of the PC World staff to show you more of the iPhone. It's been a very exciting afternoon. Now I get to take my iPhone off the docking station and have some fun - maybe even make a phone call.
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Hello PC World,
I'm jealous and going mad. I was a bit too lazy to wait in line after gong to the local AT&T Store around 5:00pm to check out the turn out. Unfortunately there were around 200 people waiting at this middle-of-nowhere-store in the tiny town of Fairfax, Virginia. I just returned home within 30 minutes of arriving to wait for the "6pm" launch on the online store which I originally assumed to be EST, but no... That's apparently not how Steve Jobs does business... I have to wait until 9pm (6pm Pacific) to order my iPhone wherein I'll take the overnight shipping option. Can I, the internet design pioneer, possibly beat the other iJunkie web-geeks to this product? I'll try but if not, I will end my relationship with Apple, buy a Zune, and wait for Steve Ballmer to work his MicroMagic with the "ZunePhone". For now, I'll just be checking out your photos drooling. I have a very love-hate relationship with Apple right now.
John Angelo
CEO, Aulle Corporation
Aulle.com
Will this phone synch to Outlook email, contacts, calendar, etc, like the Blackberry, and will it be able to do it with multiple accounts?
Well Tom, after receiving bandwidth error screens, due likely to some overextended servers at Apple, I ordered my iPhone online with success. However, I was disappointed to see that their quickest shipping option was the 2-3 Day Shipment and the most disappointing part was the note above stating "Estimated ship: 2 - 4 weeks". Wonderful Apple! Steve Ballmer will have premiered the "ZunePhone" before then (OK, so that was a slight exaggeration). If I happen to run into an iPhone at a store before the 2 - 4 weeks (highly unlikely but...), I'll have to buy a second one and do something with the one that comes in the mail. Hmmm. I'm having deja vus of that dreadful Nintendo Wii premiere. Having fun with your iPhone Tom? (That was a rhetorical question)
John Angelo
CEO, Aulle Corporation
Aulle.com
'Well, the iphone is off to a loud media circus, as predicted. As nice as the unit appears to be on paper, it seems early indications that this piece is quite "beta" and that a year with the Blackberry Pearl will be perfect to iron out the bugs.....my personal opinion is that the iphone will be an utter nighmare for most with email needs in the next few months. Stay tuned.
What happens if you don't pass AT&T's credit creck?
Sorry but did you really need it? Or is it a case of more money than brains?