So, I bought an iPhone. Setup was a dream, etc., etc. It took all of two minutes to activate it. Activating it through iTunes was a little weird – a little too tunnel-of-brand-identity for me – but whatever. The first time it synced it warned me that it was on version 1.0 of its firmware and to upgrade to 1.0.2 and doing so was a breeze. The interface is perfect, selecting what to sync was super-simple, using it with Wi-Fi is fantastic. I was an instant addict. I was already an AT&T customer so I already knew how my signal is. Where I am, the signal is great. No problem. No change there; if anything the iPhone gets better reception than my RAZR did.

Now, the problem: it wouldn’t receive calls. It would make them, sure, but the phone just would not ring. If I woke it up to look at it then it would say, hey! You missed some calls! At first I wasn’t sure I minded that, to be honest, but what if The Boyf needed to reach me in an emergency and what if if if, etc., so I called the AT&T store on Wednesday after having run some tests on it. Deadblob and Jos had listened to me bitch about this for some time and we’d read about it online and I wasn’t the only person with this problem. None of the suggested fixes seemed to work and so, it appeared, I had a dud iPhone.

I called the AT&T store to explain this to them and find out about doing an exchange. They cut me off immediately, put me on hold for a while and then came back and said I’d need to call the Apple store.

Fine, whatever.

I call the Apple store and the guy (a) listens to me and then (b) says, “OK, you just need to make an appointment with the Genius Bar and we’ll do an exchange. The AT&T store could do this for you, but they never do.” Point for Apple! They listened and they slagged on AT&T right out of the gate. As a former employee of Ma Bell, I can appreciate this.

Long story short, the Apple store did an exchange for me and tested the new one with me. It took – maybe at the outside – ten minutes to get everything taken care of and walk out with a new, activated, working phone.

So, I have mixed feelings. I’m not terribly surprised that the customer service experience at AT&T was less than stellar. Not terribly surprised at all. I’m not terribly surprised that the Apple store would just fix the problem without any hassle and stick around to make sure I was happy. It didn’t especially surprise me that I got a dud, either, to be absolutely honest; no technology is 100%. What did surprise me was the honest frustration with AT&T exhibited by every single Apple store employee with whom I spoke. What did surprise me is that the phone the AT&T store sold me was from launch. That 1.0 firmware? Yeah. I guess they really haven’t sold as well as hoped if the AT&T store at South Square is still sitting on launch-day inventory.

On the one hand, despite five of the seven days I’ve had an iPhone being filled with technical problems – the night before I exchanged it the phone also stopped syncing and stopped being capable of setting its clock correctly, coming up with random-ass times completely on its own – I wouldn’t go back to my RAZR for anything short of a small fortune. On the other hand, I wouldn’t recommend anyone pin much in the way of hopes and dreams to the iPhone. It’s awesome to use. I love mine. I also know that I’m not the only person who’s had the problems I’ve had and that the only reason I had any success getting my problems dealt with is that I live five minutes from an Apple store.