I had a frustratingly similar experience attempting, and ultimately failing, to purchase an iPhone on Tuesday (07/22/2008, well past the 07/11/2008 launch date).

Mine also involved waiting in line for an hour, at the Palo Alto Apple store. I also learned from the employee I eventually dealt with that the 10 of them assigned to selling and activating iPhones had managed to complete all of 10 activations in that same hour!

The purchase experience culminated in failure when, as the Apple employee was getting errors from her PDA (ironically, a Windows Mobile Symbol device) setting me up, I ended up having to call the dreaded 611 (AT&T’s customer service) on my own cell phone and handing it over to her. She proceeded to spend another 30 fruitless minutes with the AT&T rep at the other end of the line.

I had checked the eligibility tool AT&T rolled out online, and walked in confidently. But it turns out I am what they call a Blue customer (or is it Orange?) and not an Orange one (or is it Blue?) which seems to be the cryptic codename for someone who’s been silly enough to stick with the same carrier, through repeated acquisitions and mergers, for way too long.

The reward for loyalty? My plan is “no longer supported since 2005” (in spite of it working perfectly well, to this day, for both voice and data calls, and costing me a hefty sum every month that AT&T seems glad to charge). No problem, just upgrade me, right? Wrong. Neither Apple nor AT&T was able to do so and activate the iPhone. I tried to plea, understand the quirks of the system, bend the rules to get to the finish line: no luck.

The only option offered was to go to an AT&T store, start again from scratch, and buy the phone there, assuming AT&T even had the phone in stock. Needless to say, the prospect of waiting another hour in line anywhere killed any enthusiasm I had about “acquiring” the thing.

I certainly blame myself for having foolishly broken my rule of waiting in line for a gadget and wasted the time! To your point about whom else to blame, I think this partnership works like a marriage: together for better or worse; especially a couple of weeks in, I am not inclined to cut any more slack to one party rather than the other when they leave a presumably sizable chunk of their customer base (the blue ones!) stranded.

I hope you enjoy the phone, though, and thanks for the account switching tip.