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Got Any Riot Gear in “iPod White”?

Ron Johnson, Apple’s retail chief, says purchasing an iPhone 3G tomorrow should take only a few minutes–not including time spent sleeping on the sidewalk. But according to at least one analyst, those 12 to 15 minutes may be 12 to 15 minutes spent in hell. Why? Because the traditional in-store activation process that Apple (AAPL) and AT&T (T) have adopted for this launch is a disaster waiting to happen. “AT&T has chosen what we believe is the most ridiculous, inconvenient and ineffective process to activate the new phones,” ThinkPanmure analyst Eric Kainer wrote in a research note to clients today. “With long queues likely for the expected 8 a.m. launch, we expect prospective subscribers becoming unruly … we believe there will be trouble in AT&T stores and chaos in the Apple stores.”

Of course, activation of the original iPhone was no walk in the park, either–but for a different reason.

Comments

  1. this is silly — what are techies going to do? nothing, that’s what — techies follow the herd: they’re sheep

    Posted by hugues da mousse at July 10th, 2008 at 4:59 pm

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John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. Read more »

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