My iPhone Confession; AT&T has more coming
So after all the ranting and raving about not buying the iPhone, I bought one. Okay there I said it. I admit! I am an iPhone-y! — A visit to the Apple store, and one glance at the shiny pretty thing, I was smitten. I bought the 8 GB version, so it cost me pretty.
Context & Ripple Effects
The GigaOM writer is the profile of the post-launch convert: after vowing publicly not to buy one, a visit to the Apple Store ended in an 8 GB purchase — the same pattern other reviewers documented in early hands-on impressions two weeks after the June 29 launch. The confession matters because it captures demand broadening past the lines that formed at Apple and AT&T stores on launch day.
First-order effects
- The purchase lands inside Apple and AT&T's confirmed 14-day full-refund window — the deadline falling that Friday — so the writer holds an option, not just a phone, while deciding whether to keep it.
- Every holdout converted at retail adds load to AT&T's activation pipeline, which was already producing launch-month headaches per reports of customers stuck waiting for service to go live.
Second-order effects
- Rumored — unconfirmed — chatter on Hackint0sh about a major 'Death Star' iPhone upgrade gives new buyers a timing dilemma, and hands AT&T a retention lever as teased 'more coming' news keeps subscribers watching the carrier rather than defecting.
Third-order effects
- With Apple's touch-screen interface reportedly headed into a next-generation iPod video, the iPhone's real product may be the multi-touch platform itself — pulling Apple's device line and its exclusive US carrier toward a single ecosystem standard.
The trend: Post-launch conversions of self-declared skeptics point to the iPhone moving from early-adopter novelty toward mainstream demand, with AT&T's exclusivity and activation capacity setting the ceiling.