iPhone appears awesome... ATT's show-prep appears to suck.

I got an iPhone today... it's design and "feel" seem to be pretty nifty, so score one for Apple.

at the ATT (ne Cingular) store in Yonkers, NY, though, it took them about 4 hours to sell maybe 100 phones, because their "systems" all went down, and they were doing it by hand. Then I got home and tried to activate the phone in iTunes. ATT "determined that my account cannot be used with the iPhone"... even though we've got two smartphones with handsets and unlimited data plans and unlimited text-message plans. I suspect that's part of the problem... our current plan is more dataplan than they're planning on "upgrading" me to.

...anyway, I got this message. So I called the number, gave my info, and waited while they transferred me around, and eventually hung up on me.

Then I called back, and they explained that they'd have someone call me back in 5 or 6 minutes.

After waiting 45 minutes, I called again. They transferred me again, and then that person said they'd try to call the "people who do that". After three tries, the rep just gave me the number for (apparently) the iPhone people (877-777-xxx ) ... it's been about 20 minutes, and all I get there is a "we're experiencing technical difficulties, please try again later" message.
(update... turns out that was wrong, too. when i got through, they sent me to yet another number, so I xxx'd out that one.)

I've been a big fan of Cingular's smartphone service for awhile now. The network works pretty darn well with my Treo 650 in the NYC area. They're apparently woefully unprepared for today, though.

Currently, the "ATT suck factor" = 10.

I'm sure Steve Jobs is going to tear somebody a new butthole on a conference call somewhere tomorrow.

So, I've got an iPhone. I couldn't tell you much about it yet, though. I'll certainly keep you posted.

UPDATE!
a couple of hours later, including an hour on hold (they never answered, I just tried online repeatedly), and now the online interface says that my "business phone contract discount" (mine isn't a business phone, and indeed, it's part of my wife's and my family plan) will be removed if i continue. I, of course, do, and apparently now I have an unlimited data plan for $20 (down from the $40 I used to pay), and my iPhone works. It appears to be amazing, but I'm a little delirious from exhaustion. More updates soon.