iPhone Second Impressions: On activation, UI, EDGE and answering questions

Re: Gmail sending a copy of sent mail, I guess this is normal behavior of gmail. I have downloaded my emails from gmail ever since, and when I send emails via the web, i get a copy of the sent mail downloaded by the email client on my computer.

Re: gmail repeatedly downloading mails, possibly because emails were not removed from inbox? I have set my gmail to delete emails that were already downloaded on my computer. On my iphone, emails would only be deleted when i move them from the inbox. Otherwise, I leave them in the inbox, so I can download it onto my computer later on.

Re: deleting multiple emails, I cannot select several mails. If I click on edit, then click on one red dash, clicking on another one "unclicks" the first. I still have to delete one by one.

no problem with activation..less than ten minutes .. did not port any number or replace another phone... wanted a new number for my new iPhone :-) will cancel my treo 650 number this week (am an existing at&t customer.. my comment though is about you tube.. i also noticed that when viewing videos downloaded thru wi fi quality seems to be much better.. no pixelation that i can notice but when viewing you tube thru EDGE.. videos looked blocky. oh, btw i was expecting that EDGE would be real pokey (per David Pogue's review) but using my iPhone in the car (my wife was driving of course..) pages were loading briskly.. all in all i think it's a great phone and to think it is first generation .. as always it's all about the interface and i think other phone manufacturers still don't get it..

Has anyone else seen the
"Your iPhone activation has expired.
To restart your iPhone activation, please disconnect and reattach your iPhone now."

After waiting a few hours, I hit the FAQ button, get to the FAQ screen, click one of the Done buttons, and then I'm presented with the above error(!?) message.

"However, remember: this is just an idea I had, and I have no idea whether that will illicit any results..."

FYI, the correct word here is "elicit," not "illicit."

I'm one of many that have been having horrible activation problems. It turns out that I have two strikes against me: a.) I'm an AT&T customer, but my old phone/plan is so old that I'm a "legacy" AT&T customer who signed up before AT&T became Cingular. Meaning, I'm on some sort of separate system that's resulted in all sorts of snafus. And b.) I was getting a corporate discount through my employer.

The complete timeline:

+ Got phone Friday after a modest wait of about an hour and a half.
+ Went through activation, got the "Your activation requires additional time to complete" message. I also didn't get a choice of voice plans, so I...
+ Called support. They told me to go to the ATT store to get a "fake SIM number" in order to "trick the system."
+ Saturday: went to ATT store. They informed me that I was on the old "blue" ATT legacy system. The migrated me over to a cingular plan.
+ Got a "activation being processed e-mail"
+ Followed by an e-mail stating that my rate plan was incompatible with AT&T.
+ Went to AT&T store again -- my regular phone is now deactivated, and the store is close by, so it's easier than finding a phone to borrow to call support. They call support for me and support indicates that everything should be OK and that it might take a while.
+ Sunday: still no activation. Go back to ATT store. They say they can't do much, but they notice I have a corporate discount on my plan and I ask them to remove it. No discernible change.
+ I go into work so I can use a phone and call support. They inform me that my SIM number had been changed by the store people, which shouldn't have happened. They said they'd attempt to update my phone, and for me to reboot it and call back if it's not activated in a couple of hours.
+ Now waiting...

My advice: if you had any sort of corporate discount, get it taken off your plan. If you have an extremely old AT&T plan, get it migrated to a cingular plan prior to trying to activate.

Help please. We exchanged two iPhones at the apple store. We had
very low volume. While we were there another customer exchanged
ther phone for the same reason. We purchased at an at&t store, the other
customer purchased at the apple store. We are in San Diego, California.
The apple store was very nice even though we purchased elsewhere.
Apple store also said this is a documented problem. We have searched,
however cannot find any others with this problem. Any thoughts? This
has become iweekend. Thank you for any responses.

The word is "elicit" not "illicit."

i'm 'only' on hour 9 of waiting, but this is ridiculious. How could AT&T not be remotely prepared for half a million people trying to sign up? What, they weren't aware of the iPhone hype? NONE of them have read TUAW or Engadget in the last, oh, I don't know, SIX MONTHS???

I HATE YOU AT&T AND I DON'T EVEN KNOW YOU YET! :) i feel better... slightly

I talked to AT&T rep this afternoon to get my existing plan squared away before activating my iPhone and the internal AT&T system crashed twice while we were on the phone. He said it was due to 1/2 million people trying to activate on the same day. He was good guy and we got it done but today just has a lot going on! ralph

My purchasing experience was excellent at the Manhattan Fifth Avenue store.

My experience with AT&T over the last 24 hours has been utterly horrific.

7:36 PM Friday - First appearance of the dreaded "more time is required to activate" message. This was on one of two new iPhones. Both numbers were on a shared Verizon account. Since the first one wasn't fully activated and both iPhones would share one Family Talk account I decided to wait to activate the second.

7:00 AM Saturday - No email. iPhone #1 still bricked. The AT&T iPhone activation line wouldn't allow me to speak to a human being. I tried every option, every combination. I would either get an "invalid number" (even though I the system would repeat back to me the number THEY sent me in the email), or the system would merely say "That is not a valid option. Goodbye." (paraphrased)

8:00 AM Saturday - Decided to call the main AT&T customer service number. After 45 minutes on hold the agent told me that there had been a system error on my account and that the number port had not been initiated. (She couldn't imagine why.) And while I needed to call the number porting department to resolve it (which didn't open for another ten minutes at this point), that she could manually activate me. I gave her the IMEI and ICCID numbers for BOTH phones. We confirmed my rate choices. She apologized and said she was happy she could help.

9:00 AM Saturday - Called the number porting department. This agent ported BOTH numbers to my AT&T account, confirming with me to attach a specific phone number to each IMEI and ICCID numbers. I'm all set, she says. Just re-attached my iPhones and redo the activation sequence in iTunes.

10:00 AM Saturday - Plug in iPhone #1. iTunes still displays the "more time required" message. My only option is to read a FAQ. There is no way to restart the process. So, first time, I plug in iPhone #2. Go through the process. It activates in moments. (Like they all should.) I IMMEDIATELY get an email telling me my "NEW" number... this is not either one of the two numbers I had ported.

10:15 Call number porting back.

10:45 Number porting says they can fix it. They do and the agent calls the phone with the correct number. It rings. She says she doesn't know why "they" didn't just have everyone do a new activation FIRST, then port their number over to replace the one automatically provided by default. She gets an iPhone activation specialist on the phone with us -- an AT&T three way. The iPhone activation expert, Bonnie (the only name I remember), was in a baaaaaad mood. She was rude and short-tempered. She tells me that customer service ruined my activation by added SIM numbers, etc. over the phone. That they should've known better and literally says to me, "If you hadn't jumped the system and tried to activate over the phone, none of this would be happening." I told her all I did was ask about the delay. *I* didn't *do* anything. *AT&T* did. She says I shouldn't have called any other number and that I should've just been patient and waited. That activations are processed on a first come first serve basis. When I mentioned that of my two iPhones, only the one activated SECOND on Saturday morning had been processed while the first activation (begun at 7:39 PM Friday) was still pending she got even more mad at me. She assured me that she had "corrected the error" but that I was now back in the back of the activation cue and that nothing could be done to expedite it.

I go see a movie and try to calm down. I seethe as my partner pulls out his fully-functioning iPhone and browses the web at the theater. (Rattatouie is the best Pixar film every, btw.)

7:36 PM Saturday - 24 HOURS LATER. For the first time so far, I'm actually able to get a human in the iPhone activation department without someone else at AT&T calling them on my behalf. The poor girl is flustered and isn't making much sense. Musta been a tough day. She seems confused and stutters a bit. After fifteen minutes on hold she returns and tells me that one of the features I asked to be added could not be added at this time. This is what's holding up my activation. Once they've fixed the issue the phone will activate. I ask her what feature? I didn't add any feature. She tells me it's the Pay As You Play feature. The WHAT?!?! I said my other phone activated fine and they are both on an identical plan. She tells me this is a required feature and that there was no problem adding it to the other phone or it wouldn't be working. I ask for a Supervisor.

8:00 PM Saturday - Supervisor says the first agent intended to say the data plan. That it was the data plan they couldn't attach. And that as soon as their server errors were corrected all will be

Hmmm. Stuck here on the bottom of the planet and not even any *rumours* as to *whether* we will see the iPhone, let alone when.

But I do have to ask. Re deleting multiple items, has anybody tried multiple fingers??