29-Hours to Order the iPhone 7

It took me 29-hours to order the iPhone 7 Plus. 

I had decided well before the Apple keynote earlier this week, thanks to solid internet rumors, that a new iPhone 7 Plus would be in the cards for me. In fact, I went so far as to put my current iPhone in the Gazelle queue. Why the 7? I want the dual camera capabilities. The Apple event did not disappoint and I was easily sold on the Jet Black iPhone 7 Plus with 128mb even though I am still a little concerned about adjusting to the larger phone.

But it almost didn’t happen!

For for first time, I did the midnight purchase (I’m in California). It took until 12:05am before the order page loaded on the iPhone app. I was simultaneously refreshing on my laptop. By the time the order page loaded, the shipment date for the jet black was 2-3 weeks out. Wow, that’s one hot item! 

Then the order itself didn’t process correctly due to a reported issue with AT&T but I was given a confirmed “reservation” indicating my spot in line and that I’d receive an email from Apple to finish the transaction later. No payment made at this point. I went to bed and come morning there was the email from Apple with the link to complete the transaction. 

It didn’t work. 

The first issue was a custom Apple 404 error page during the third step of ordering. That continued until late morning. Once that started working, I got to the checkout screen only to be stopped by a requirement that I make a deposit with AT&T and that I’d have to do an in-store pickup rather than shipment. Alas, no in store pickups available because the phone isn’t out yet. Catch-22. 

Throughout the day, with numerous tries and calls (and disconnections) to Apple then AT&T and then Apple again, I still was not able to complete the purchase. The timer was ticking as the reservation as it was only good until noon on Saturday.  The phone queues were getting longer. Finally, at 6pm an AT&T representative went the extra step to test my account and write up extensive notes on the shared AT&T/Apple system. I was totally in the clear with AT&T. What made sense being I was buying the phone outright, was not leasing, using payment plans, or renewing a contract. So bizarre this was even happening. 

Time to call Apple again. 

This time the Apple representative said this was a known bug in the order system and they’d been working on it all afternoon. It should be fixed within an hour. This was 7pm on Friday night. When I went to bed a few hours later, it still wasn’t working. Letting go. It seemed that on every turn I made that this phone was not in the cards for me. That’s okay. It’s only a phone. 

5am. Saturday. One more try. Success!

And so, I have the Jet Black iPhone 7 Plus ordered and expected delivery the first week of October. In all, I probably spent 3-hours in hold queues and about an hour on the phone with different representatives explaining the situation. Way too much time, but I was committed (or maybe should be committed?). My mental attitude was pretty good throughout the process. I didn’t get angry, raise my voice, or regret anything I said to Apple or AT&T. That is a good sign of my mindfulness practice. It all worked out in the end, and I’m happy. And even if it hadn’t worked out, that too would have been fine.