I registered my interest as soon as the page was available on the Vodafone website and paid the $189, waited for a while and got a reply from Direct Deals saying they couldn’t process my order as I was still on a plan and I needed to pay off that plan, which I wanted to do anyway. I called them up and, after about an hour in the phone queue, spoke to someone who said that he would organise me paying off the old plan and that they had already taken the money off my credit card for the iPhone anyways so my iPhone was on the way, woohoo!

I received a confirmation e-mail to say that my iPhone would be delivered in 2-5 working days. Thing is… I was leaving for a snowboarding holiday in New Zealand within that period so called Vodafone to re-arrange the delivery and they advised they would wait for me to let them know when I was ready, or that I could simply go to the Apple store in Sydney and pick it up… hmmph.

Went to the Apple store after snowboarding for a week (awesome fun), who advised me that I needed to cancel my online deal to purchase one through them, I explained that Vodafone told me I could sort it out with them, they advised I visit a Vodafone store. I visited a Vodafone store who told me that they did not deal with the on-line orders, but the Vodafone store down the road did. That other store did not deal with on-line deals. So… back on the phone for about 45 minutes on hold and I was advised that I had already signed for my iPhone, which had been delivered already. The guy sent me a copy of the signature, which wasn’t mine, but belonged to someone else at my house… SOOOO it was sitting there at home waiting for me all along :)

On the day the iPhone came out, I went to the shopping centre at about 10.30am.

First stop was the Optus store, they were sold out.
I knew i wanted the optus plan, so I looked around at all the Optus carrying shops in the centre.

I thought I was out of luck, but then I saw another shop, AllPhones.

So, I went in and asked “Do you have any iPhones left?”
Guy: “Yeah actually we have 2 left”
Me: “:O I want one!”
Guy: “Alright!”

And so I filled in the forms, waited 20 mins for it to activate and off I went.

It’s been great ever since! Haven’t had an issue at all.

The staff arrived at about 6:55 and went inside and started opening up the shop. At 7:05 one of the staff came out and said that they shouldn’t be too much longer and were de-bricking the phones. 7:15 a staff member came out again and called out 10 people’s names. They said that those people had put their names down to receive a phone at the Burwood store. He then said to the rest of us that after these people had received their phones, there were 8 phones left and they were all 8GB phones. Needless to say we weren’t impressed. Most of us left muttering the regular f*ck you Optus comments.

I then went into the City (at 7:30 from Burwood, this isn’t a fun experience!). I arrived at the city store and saw the line of about 150 people and was considering leaving when someone came up and asked if I had put down a deposit. I was then taken to a line of about 20 people. The line took about an hour and I went in to speak to one of the staff. As he went to put my details into the system, the system crashed… I filled out a form and he said that he will process it later when the system is back up. I wasn’t impressed but left to go back to my car. I walked 100M up the road and got a call from the guy who said that the system was back up.
I went back to the store and the person who had just called me was with someone else… I waited around for another 25 minutes and he finally finished up. He came up to me and said that the system had gone down again. I left again and went home without a phone.

At about 2pm I got a call and went back to the store to pick up my phone.

The plan I’m on is perfect for me and I’ve been pretty happy with the phone in general and haven’t had any real problems. There are the obvious missing features but I was aware of those before I got it. After the initial debacle, I’m a satisfied customer.

At least half those were either after a prepaid phone or were new customers and needed a credit check (I’m an existing customer with a deposit). I got to the front of the queue at about 7.45am was processed and out of there by 8.05am and home by 8.15am. Been loving the phone ever since.

And for those that badly want an ‘outright’ iPhone (and don’t need to worry about a credit check): do the maths on the cheapest Optus plan. Since there is no unlock fee (and you can unlock it straight away) I think it works out cheaper than buying the prepaid and your repayments are spread out over 12 months AND you still get included voice and data even if you never use it. Still tough to get ahold of one but easier than asking for a prepaid.

The iPhone is new and in demand. It’s been no secret you need to wait to get one.

Anyway, got in, got my iPhone 16Gb in white, and the problems started…

- They couldn’t activate my line. So they made me fill the paper work up and told me they would activate it as soon as the system is back on.
- 11pm: still nothing, so I call and the salesperson I saw in the morning told me she would do it asap but they have so many customers that they can’t keep up. To which I replied that she should logically finish with the 1st customers before dealing with the others.
- 2pm: still nothing, I call back the store and another chick tells me that I have to contact the customer service to get it done. I get angry and ask to talk to the salesperson from earlier. When she picks up the phone, she tells me that she has already activated it and that I just have to wait for it…
- I wasn’t so sure about it so I call the customer service (who put me to the iphone customer service) and ask them what’s going on with my account. The guy tells me that there is no trace of me anywhere and that most likely the salesperson hasn’t done anything.
- I call back the store and I am talking to the store manager. I explain that I am not too happy about the situation. She says it’s normal because the system is not working and they didn’t get a chance to activate anything. This just proved to me that the salesperson had lied to me saying she did activate my line… Which I remind the manager who basically says “yes we are getting on to this” and hungs up on me.
- I call the complaint phone number on Optus website. The guy who picks up asks for my phone number (that I just gave to the automatic answering machine btw) without saying hello or anything. I explain it is for a complaint and the guy says I have to call the sales department for that. Very useful.
- In the mean time, the salesperson calls me back to organise the activation of my phone (it’s around 3pm by then…).
- Coming home, I wanna buy MobileMe. My iTunes account doesnt work for some reason… I am still waiting for an answer from Apple…
- A week later, I wanna get international roaming (a very common and basic service in France, where I come from) for my holidays in singapore. I call the customer service (tennis game between the normal customer service and iphone customer service again…) to be told that I can’t get the service until 3 months. Pissed off, I talk to the team leader who tells me that if I can prove that I’ve had international roaming with another ISP I will be able to get it.
- I get my mum back in France to scan and email my invoices to Optus. They call me back at a ridiculous time (7.30 in the morning in Perth… Those guys in Sydney didn’t even think of the time difference…) and I get told that I need to put a ridiculous $800 deposit down to get this basic service…

So all in all:
- Optus, you suck
- iTunes, you suck
- MobileMe, you suck

:(

1. Optus setting a quota on how many pre-paid handsets it will sell and thus not actually being in a position to sell me one until… Well, they didn’t know and they couldn’t/wouldn’t take an order (”It would just be too much trouble,” I was told).

2. When challenged on the quota (here I was, willing to hand over the best part of a thousand dollars and they had iPhones in the shop but were only allowed to sell them on contract) the guy at Optus “World” said: “A contract customer is just worth far more to us than a pre-paid customer.” Now this might be true, but it is NOT something you say to any potential customer. If I’d been even toying with the idea of an Optus contract that statement would have turned me off right then and there – customer lost. (I hadn’t told him I planned to unlock and go elsewhere; I would have been even more offended if I’d in fact hoped to use the phone on Optus’s prepaid plans.)

So at this stage I’m just going to wait. I’m loath to give my money to telcos who provide very poor customer service and who simply don’t get what it is that Apple is offering in the iPhone. The only potential they can see is how much money they can get out of their customers by stocking this device.

I really do wish that the iPhone were being sold outright through Apple stores and then we would be dependent on telcos only for the plans. Who knows, if an updated iPod touch comes out anytime soon I may just opt for that and keep my SE phone (which does MMS and bluetooth and video and a number of other nifty things that Apple hasn’t gotten around to yet, including tethering to my laptop as a modem).