Somehow my IMEI and SIM numbers were wrong. I don’t know how that happens. Also we got the IMEI number off by one during the process. My rate plan was wrong somehow. I switched sim cards around between phones once. I don’t even know. Disaster is truly the right word.

Now it’s the wonderful waiting again. Which usually means nothing will work.

The Apple discussion boards are even having problems. They keep going down. The RSS feed is still being updated but the number of new posts is small probably because nobody can get through. I’m surprised that the news hasn’t picked up on this at all. It just goes to show that modern news is just people reading press releases. They report all week long on the release of the iPhone and then don’t even realize many people aren’t able to activate.

I’m tempted to call again just to see if they can do anything now.

I hope that AT&T does a serious postmortem on this. More than that, I hope that my iPhone starts working some time soon.

Last minute addition: I remember when I worked at AT&T how they would talk about how expensive customer support was. But it seems the obvious solution is just to make your product work. How has the company made their network system so complicated that it apparently can’t be effectively managed? The company goal should be to have zero customer support calls for activation issues, including calls to do activation itself. The is a process that should be entirely customer driven. Customer support should be for exceptional issues, like a cell phone tower going down, or a dead phone. You shouldn’t have to talk to someone to do obvious stuff.

So I called back again to get info on this sim card nonsense. The person couldn’t find any documentation on why I would need a new sim card. Nice. I asked her if she could move me to the iPhone plan. She tried but said I couldn’t until the iPhone was activated. Weird. I asked her to verify that I was in the iPhone activation queue since my old phone had started working again and that worried me. She said I was in the queue. So I guess now it’s just hurry up and wait.

Then I talked to someone who was not helpful at all who kicked me out into the root phone cue. “If you’re calling about auto insurance, press 1. If you’re query has to do with food, press 2.”

I hung up and called again and talked to someone else who’s transferred me again. It’s like there’s no record of what just happened before I went to the store. The people on the phone are asking me why I have a new sim card and what I plan to do with it. Guess what? I don’t know!

I don’t understand why AT&T didn’t go through all of their rate plans and say, “If this customer buys a phone, this is how we’ll handle it.”

I just hope I’m actually on hold and not in customer support purgatory.

OK, I’m talking to a new person. Now I have to drive to a store to get a “free simcard” that will somehow be used to activate my phone. It’s bizarre. I don’t understand. She did offer to waive the early termination fee if I changed my number. I was nice, but I’m thinking to myself. Oh, you’re not going to charge me for the inconvenience? How wonderful of you! Plus my contract is up anyway so there wouldn’t be a fee. If so much as one cent shows up on my bill for this activation, they will be getting a call from me.

I gave Michal his phone at breakfast. He was excited. Some of his Microsoft clients still have such a negative attitude. I can’t imagine that will last much longer after seeing the phone in action.

Oh my gosh, the hold music has turned to a continuous statement of “Your call will be answered as soon as possible” just repeating over and over again. It’s like Lost but without all the counting. Oh, and in English.

Ooohhh! The Police! “Sending out an S – O – S!” All in saxaphone!

I’m meeting Michal and Charna for breakfast this morning to give him his iPhone. But as his technology consultant I’m going to have to recommend he just wait a little while until all this clears up.

We’re sorry. AT&T has identified a problem with the information you provided. For more information call…

My account is not that complicated, so I can’t imagine there’s any information needed from me to make this work. I was on hold for 30 minutes then the hold music just stopped. So I hung up. I’ll call back later when maybe they’ve had time to figure this stuff out.

I’m not that surprised that they were overwhelmed at the volume of activations. That’s very understandable. But my old phone shouldn’t have been deactivated until the new one worked. And finally, I should be able to use the iPhone at least as an iPod until the phone part starts working.

This is the worst customer experience in Apple history. I can’t imagine that Steve Jobs isn’t totally freaking out. I do think the phone will be awesome when it starts working, but I can’t think of a product ever with so much hype that you spend $600 for and then all it does is waste your time and disappoint you. This is seriously bad.

The phone looks neat, but there were two small problems. First of all, since I already had a business account, the activation process only allowed me to add the $20 iPhone data plan. I wanted to choose a whole new plan, but I can do that over the phone later. Second, AT&T seems to be having a slowdown and I’m waiting for the phone to activate still. Hopefully it won’t be too long.

Daniel, David, and I also signed up for our Harry Potter books so we can go to Barnes & Noble at midnight the night it comes out and get it. Yes, this is all blatant consumerism, but it’s not like I’m doing this every day. I still have a 20 inch TV for goodness sake!

Anyway, looking forward to using the iPhone, hopefully it won’t be too long.