While waiting to check out of the Apple store, I overheard a pretty blond, I’m guessing in her early 20s, who looked like she was out shopping with mom, say this to an Apple store employee:
Girl: “I think I want to buy an iPhone.”
Clerk: “OK, we have the 4 and the 8 gigabytes versions…”
Girl: “What’s the difference?”
Clerk: “…um….4 gigabytes?” (Yeah, I thought it was a trick question too.)
Girl: “There’s no other difference?”
Clerk: “Nope.”
Girl: “Ok, here’s the thing, my [current cell phone] contract doesn’t expire for awhile, but I can use it [the iPhone] as an iPod until then, right?”
Clerk: “Yeah.”
Ok. Moral dilemma time. What he’s told her is wrong, as far as I know. Yeah there are hacks around to subvert AT&T activation, but that’s not exactly something I expect an Apple store employee to be suggesting.
I’m not usually one to butt into a total stranger’s conversation, but if someone sold me a $400 phone I couldn’t use, I’d be pretty mad if someone didn’t at least try to stop me.
Me: (leaning forward) “Um. No, actually, you can’t.”
Clerk: “Really? I thought I had been told you could.”
Me: “Well I left mine in a box for several days until my old contract expired, and the first thing it wants you to do is activate it before you can use it.”
Clerk: (pointing to some other random guy standing nearby) “He says you can. He [pointing to me] says you can’t.” (You’re some help, buddy. Why not see if there’s an actual store employee who might know the answer, rather than bouncing off two customers?)
Other Random Guy: “Yeah, you can. (pause) I mean, you’d have to look on the Internet for instructions, but it can be done.”
Girl: “Yeah, um… I’m not really good at that sort of thing?” (Translation: Do I look like a hacker chick to you? What was it, the blond pony tail or the bubbly personality that gave it away?)
Girl (to me): “My contract isn’t up for a long time.” (pout)
Me: “Ah, break it. It’s probably only $100-150, and they just dropped the price of the iPhone by $200.”
Girl: (responding to price drop) “Really?!” To hear the tone of voice, imagine I had shown a 7 year old with a puppy and told her she could keep it. “I’m going to have to find out about [breaking her contract].”
At that point another clerk opened up and I was able to check out. I didn’t see the end of our little drama, but I wondered how many people would respond to the price break the same way: $150 to break contract - $200 price drop on iPhone = “I’m still $50 ahead.”
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In other news around the shopping world: I was in Best Buy and saw that there were dozens of iPod Nano cases which would no longer fit the new version. I wonder how the accessory makers feel about Apple’s continually shifting the iPod form factor. Yeah you might be left with a lot of unsold product, but then again the case that I bought 2 years ago might not fit the new iPods, so maybe they make up for it that way? There doesn’t seem to be much of a shortage of iPod accessory makers out there.
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Lastly: another clerk @ the Apple store told me that any iPod car cassette adapter would work with the iPhone if I had an adapter for the headset jack. Can anyone confirm that? I thought that there were interference issues since the iPhone is, well, a phone.