A Thinking Man

I’ve had difficulties in deciding what to do.  Readers who have been following this heart-rending story (see My Dilemma) will know that it has been a harrowing time.  However, things came to a head over a week ago - July 11, the day before I went on holiday.

We were going to Northumberland for a week with my mother-in-law.  I needed a distraction.  My wife and her mother would do the kind of things that they don’t get time to do together during the year, and which they enjoy - spotting birds and trying to identify names, spotting wild flowers and trying to identify names, (and if things get really desperate - and they did) spotting grasses and trying to identify names.  I really did need a distraction - something that would absorb me completely - a new toy.  A reward for my forbearance.  And afterall, I couldn’t be expected to go into the middle of nowhere for a week without Net access or being able to read emails.  I knew that before going away, I just wanted to get one of the new iPhones (iPhone 3G).  They were being released on 11 July - so I only had one day.

Enquiries to the two stores in my town that were likely to get the handsets revealed that they were going to be in short supply (one shop admitted they were only getting two handsets - Apple may have sold over ten million between 11-13 July, but NOT in my area).  Shop staff laughed condescendingly if you asked about reserving one.  I would have to queue.

Having decided to begin my holiday a day early, I leapt out of bed at 05:30.  As I drove wearily into town I experienced a mild panic.  There was lots of traffic.  Perhaps thousands of others in the area had had the same idea.  It was a relief, therefore, to find that I was third in the queue.  I would have felt very silly if I had been first, anxious if I had been tenth (would there be enough handsets?) and very sad if I had been forty-first.

Having queued recently for over three hours to get into the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the prospect of just over a two hour queue outside the O2 store in my town didn’t seem too bad.  During the next two hours, the queue lengthened steadily and I stopped counting once it got over forty and disappeared round the corner.

To begin with I felt slightly awkward, as if I had joined some disreputable group.  The person who was first was a middle-aged man with a crewcut and T shirt who revealed he had travelled some distance (but didn’t say where from).  He spent most of the time composing emails on his existing handset and mentioning Beijing - I think we were meant to be impressed.  The second person was a male in his young twenties who spent most of the time answering my attempts at conversation in mono-syllables and texting on his Blackberry.  I was somewhat relieved as the queue then started to get more ‘normal’.

There was a local accountant with his teenage son, a doctor I recognised from the local hospital, young ‘totty’ that chewed gum and listened to their iPods, mothers with distressed children in very smart uniforms, assistants who worked in nearby shops, white-van men who were reading The Sun as they waited, and power-dressed office workers.

The time seemed to rush by quickly.  We waved at the CCTV cameras that buzzed above our heads, clearly disturbed by the unusual gathering.  We smiled at the joggers and street cleaners who were clearly bemused by our unusual presence.  We discussed the merits and demerits of our existing handsets.  We huddled together rather secretly around one man who exposed his existing iPhone (the now old-version) for our furtive and admiring gazes (though no-one was allowed to touch).  We joked with the enterprising women from the coffee shop opposite who saw our queue, and then came across and offered us their wares.

Apart from all this distraction, there was one topic that hung heavily in the air: “How many handsets do they have?”  And everytime we asked one of the assistants going into the shop, we received the same answer: “I’m sorry, we are not allowed to say!”

The store opened promptly at 08:00.  There were three sales staff and three desks.  I was ushered into place and sat down with the Manager.  What should have been simple, wasn’t, and it took over an hour before I left with my iPhone 3G.  There were two problems.  First, the O2 computer and telephone system couldn’t cope with the volume of traffic it was receiving.  The details just couldn’t be processed on computer or by phone.  They had to be recorded manually.  Secondly, there was a glitch with me over dates and the time when I could start a new contract.  In the previous week I had been assured that Friday 11 would be ok and that a note was put on my file to that effect. (”Don’t worry sir. There won’t be a problem.”)  However, as no-one could access my electronic file, the manager wouldn’t believe me and refused to give me a new phone.  After a fair degree of huffing and puffing and pretending that my business would suffer if I had to change my mobile number, I agreed to take out a new contract with a new number rather than transfer my old one.

I left the shop clutching my phone.  Because the shop were not able to process the details electronically, the handset didn’t spring into life for over another thirty hours.  I later learned that the shop only had five handsets.  So, there were a total of seven available in my town on 11 July.  Hundreds wanted them, and I managed to get one.

Was it worth it? You bet!!!  I’m a convert.  I knew within minutes that I had made the right decision.  More in future postings. It is just so different from any other phone I have ever had.  And I spent a week in the middle of nowhere accessing the Net and reading and composing emails to my heart’s content.  I even answered a technical question for my mother-in-law by searching Google.  She was impressed - and that is saying something!

Tags: browsing, CCTV, emails, Florence, handset, Internet, iPhone, iPhone 3G, mobile, mobile phone, Net, Northumberland, O2, queue, queueing, Uffizi, Web