iPhone Launch Scorecard
Life is starting to return to normal again. Visiting the Apple store on Saturday was a much different experience than the previous day. There was a small group of 10-15 people playing with iPhones and another 5 or so wandering around the store.
Also, it appears that the activation issues that many customers were having are slowly being resolved by Apple and AT&T.
AppleHound iPhone launch scorecard:
| Category | Score | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Security | A+ | Luckily security was not necessary, but they were available if needed. Better to be safe than sorry. |
| Hospitality | A+ | Apple employees delivered bottles of water to waiting customers. At about 5:00 PM they they brought around Caribou Coffee. Wireless internet connection available from the Apple store. Internet access also available on all of the Macs in the store. |
| Shopping Experience | A+ | Our best purchasing experience ever. An abundance of staff, smiles, high fives, clapping, and thank-yous. The staff appeared to be as just as excited about the launch as the customers. |
| Accessory Availability | B- | Accessories were inconveniently located on a rack under one of the higher display tables. No Apple Bluetooth headset available at launch. No black carrying cases with belt clip (found one at AT&T today). |
| Activation Process | D | The Apple and AT&T activation servers that were contacted by iTunes were not adequately tested to handle demand. Staff were not ready to handle the wide variety of activation issues that customers had. During our calls to customer support Apple pointed the finger at AT&T and AT&T at Apple. This is a very typical situation when working with multi-vendor products. |
| Overall Score | B | We could have easily bumped this up to within the 'A-' to 'A' range had we not had so many issues with the activation of the iPhone. |
How would you score the launch?
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