Sunday the 26th, not thinking about the iPhone 4 at all (see previous blog entry), we decided to do a long-overdue spring-cleaning... had some interesting discoveries but that's another story. After cleaning, at 7:27pm I received an SMS in 3-parts:
"GLOBE_IPHONE4 Good news! You now have a chance to get your iPhone 4 TODAY, Sept. 26. Please be at Makati Shangri-La Hotel (Rizal Ballroom) anytime before 10pm. Hurry! First come, first served. Limited stocks only. See you there!"
I didn't really know what to do with this immediately. I had just had supper, so was basically winding down after a day of cleaning. I wasn't really that anxious about getting the phone... not really. I could have easily waited. However, I thought, "It's a Sunday... no traffic... it's up to 10pm, so plenty of time... I had a full stomach... not at all tired yet... WHY NOT?!"
We now set-off for Makati Shangri-La. True enough, no traffic, parking was easy. We get to Rizal Ballroom... SO MANY PEOPLE!! But quite orderly.
They had 2 lines, one for 16gb, the other for 32gb. The 32gb was the significantly longer lin
e... and that was my line! After a couple of minutes, they tell us that they had run out of 32gb models this afternoon. Hokay, I just ask calmly, "Then, why did you send out this SMS if the stocks of 32gb had run out?" They said it was a failure in their part to specify that the 16gb was still available. I say, "Okay, so if there are none, I'm going home, are you quite sure wala na?", in a very calm, casual manner. She then said she will double check. After a few moments, she comes back and says that there were a handful of 32gb units that had arrived from New World Hotel (the other launch site). So, they counted how many 32gb clients there were, and guess who got the last unit?!
Now, flashback to the launches of the iPhone 4 in other countries, with lines stretching for blocks, customers camping out in the cold, crowds gathering, etc.
In the Philippines, we were in a 5-star hotel ballroom, air conditioning, very comfy cushioned chairs or couches, snack buffet (sausage & salsa, pastry shell with meat, empanada), brewed coffee and tea. They give you a number which is strictly followed, and inside you will see around one hundred workstations to process all of the clients. This was around 8:30 pm on a Sunday, and they've been there since 5:30 am, still with hundreds of clients to go! You can imagine how many people had come and gone since that morning! I'm not surprised they're able to afford a 5-star hotel ballroom with complimentary food and beverages. How many phones (the cheapest being 38k) do you need to sell to pay for the accommodations? Peanuts to them! Everything was orderly without raised tempers which is more than I can say for the Corporate User's launch on the 24th!
With all the workstations the large number of ushers and staff facilitating, the movement of the line was still quite slow. Approximately one person is called every 3-5 minutes. Occasionally 2 or 3 will be called at one time, but it was still very slow. Later I found out why.
When my turn came up (I was one of the, if not THE, last one), they sit you down in front of a person with a workstation. This is when you have a one-on-one discussion on what Post-Paid Plan to get, new vs retention vs loyalty points vs pre-paid. You can imagine how long these conversations take (if I get..., how much?). Also the amount you pay not only varies with choice of plan, so does the mode of payment. A LOT of people paid in cash! I can imagine that there were armored cars coming in after the launch ended. I paid via PayLite 0% interest for 6 months. Makes it more painless. Others I saw, paid for it partially in cash then credit card.
One big problem, especially for the 32 giggers was that the extra stocks had only arrived a few minutes ago, and thus the stocks had not appeared in the computer's inventory, so as far as the computer was concerned, "out-of-stock" pa! They probably had to encode each unit one-at-a-time before it came in, and only after will the unit be brought to the ballroom to be released. If you think about it, it was a logistics and sales nightmare, and everything could have SNAFU'd quite easily... good thing it didn't... but it did take a long time.
After getting your unit, you go to the activation desk where they unbox your new toy, hook it up, and activate it. There's no getting away from this! You can't do it at home. I was disappointed since I, of course like any geek, prefer to unbox these things myself.
Afterwards you're free to go, but there are two more stops of note. There's a "Synchronization Area" for those who are computer illiterate or don't have a computer to sync it to... which I can't really understand! You're buying one of the most advanced and expensive phones in the world, and yet you don't have either the knowledge or the resources (or both) to synchronize it to your own computer?? I will NEVER synchronize any of my gadgets with a computer that isn't mine for obvious reasons (if it's not so obvious, in a nutshell it's, Security and Personalization). But this may be a rant for another day.
The next stop is a kiosk that was set-up by PowerMac where you can buy accessories such as cases, cables and chargers. I didn't bother to get any since I had already looked at virtually all cases available in the local market and had chosen the Momax i Case Pro which is similar to Apple's bumper but with a plastic cover at the back.
Then that's it... we went home and I just charged "My Precious" and went to sleep. Tomorrow's my birthday, and that's when I'll play with my new present!
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