How AT&T promised me the iPhone X and then let me down
Commentary: The morning email from AT&T was so upbeat. Until I tried to preorder Apple's new phone, that is.
Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives.
I tried to say hello to the future. But the future didn't reply.
No, I wasn't going to sit up past midnight.
I'd like to hold the iPhone X in my hand, slip it in my pocket and generally give it a test-stroke before buying one.
In any case, what chance did I really have of getting one? The preorders sold out in 10 minutes. Demand, said Apple, was off the charts.
But, as I lay there in bed on Friday morning, an email from AT&T told me it had my back. It had been sent at 7:20 a.m. PT.
"Krzysztof, your wait for iPhone X is over," the subject line said. (Yes, Krzysztof is my real first name. Please feel free to try and pronounce it.)
Had AT&T decided that I was a favored customer? Had it saved one for me, knowing instinctively -- or even algorithmically -- what my preferences were? Did it really know what time I wake up? This was quite brilliant.
I eagerly opened the email.
"Say hello to the future," it crowed.
"Hullo," I mumbled, my mouth a little dry.
I immediately pressed on the preorder button. "iPhone X. You've never seen anything like it. It's never seen anything like you," was the message on the page.
AT&T seemed to have even preset my preferred color -- space gray. I've never seen anything like it. This was uncanny.
And then I clicked on the "256GB" button. Nothing happened. I clicked again. And again. And once more.
Oh.
My wait for an iPhone X was over. As long as I wanted a space gray 64 GB version. Which I don't. There were no silver ones. There were no 256 GB ones.
Given that there had been much talk of supply issues with this phone, couldn't AT&T have been a little more judicious with its promises?
Couldn't the company at least have had some perspective as to when the actual phone I wanted might be available? It seems not.
I contacted AT&T to ask whether this little email tease wasn't a touch, um, optimistic. I will update, should I I get a reply.
My wait for an iPhone X is, in fact, not over. Indeed, this sort of marketing -- specifically sent more than seven hours after preorders began -- made me doubt a little more whether I want to wait at all.
Perhaps I'll see if the first ones that appear in normal human hands have issues of one kind or another.
There's always something wrong with new phones, isn't there?
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