Today, I fell, once again, into a Fool’s Queue and helplessly tried to upgrade my two iPhone 3GS devices to iPhone 4 cellphones. I should’ve known better. Upgrading your iPhones has never been an enjoyable, or easy, job. I first logged on to the AT&T website to upgrade.
I cheerily clicked on the “Upgrade Options” link and was taken to this screen where I could select each existing iPhone for upgrading.
After lots of waiting and dead web page responders and re-loading and re-trying, I was finally able to get this error screen from AT&T for my upgrade order:
Calling that phone number leads to a recorded loop telling me how precious I am, and what a good person I am, and to keep on holding on because AT&T is such a great company and can’t wait to speak with me.
I hung up the phone after 25 minutes of that incessant drivel.
I decided to head on over to the Apple website to see how I might upgrade my phones there. I’m not interested in standing in a line. I want to order my phone online and have it delivered to me on June 24.
I clicked on the blue button below.
I was met with this dead screen.
I went back to AT&T and tried to upgrade again — carefully repeating all my previously failed steps — hoping against history and time and tide that, somehow, AT&T would finally get a smooth launch of a new iPhone off the ground.
This time, AT&T changed the game on me as you can see below! Suddenly, I was no longer able to order online! How. Dare. They!
I clicked on the “How to Upgrade” link and was given the following in a pop-up window. The error message has no meaning or context if AT&T will not answer the phone.
I don’t understand why Apple and AT&T can’t better sync their efforts so we are not made to suffer during the iPhone upgrade process.
Every year we go through this — every year both Apple and AT&T are caught unaware — every year we get wrung through the upgrade wringer.
I know this is only the beginning of my demise with AT&T and I know what will happen. AT&T will use the eagerness of early upgrade freaks like me and punish us for trying to get our place in line. Our “unprocessed” order will muck things up for a week or two as they seek to gather time and regain their breath and then they’ll process a new upgrade order, but double-charge us because the “first, unprocessed order” was amazingly already released and charged.
AT&T is a nightmare company. They always have been. They always will be. I accept that I am certifiably insane because I keep thinking, hoping, wishing — that somehow, “this time, it will be different.”