The General iPhone Thread and FAQ

[Gastro Gnome]

Wow . . . still a huge queue outside the Apple Store on Bahnhofstrasse.

[pk01]

not surprised, who wants these expensive contracts when you can get the phone for 769chf.. super value, i am going to get one later this year when they fix the signal issues

	Quote:	Gastro Gnome
	Wow . . . still a huge queue outside the Apple Store on Bahnhofstrasse.

[Gastro Gnome]

	Quote:	pk01
	not surprised, who wants these expensive contracts when you can get the phone for 769chf.. super value, i am going to get one later this year when they fix the signal issues

Data use on the contracts does work out cheaper than any pay as you go data, especially if use about 1gb a month.

[Castro]

	Quote:	cotechia
	I got the 32Gb in a 1 year contract for 639 CHF. They will discount 80CHF on the first month, plus 10CHF every month. I changed my original iPhone Optima 100 (which does not longer exists, costs 65CHF) for the Optima Surf (cost 39CHF with the discount). I considered a good deal. Now let's see when I will receive it.

I'm in exactly the same boat (Optima 100) so its good to hear it from someone who's finally managed to reach the promised land. It does indeed sound like a good deal, and according to the email from Orange you should have until the 21st August to take advantage of the cash back.

[Slaphead]

To be honest all this crap with queueing, waiting 3, 4, 5 weeks for delivery, and then the inevitable bugs that come with being an early adopter really puts me off apple products these days.

If I was buying an Aston Martin then yes, I could understand as it's a rather special item in which a lot is hand made. However an iPhone, iPad or iWhatever is just an electronic gadget being made in a Chinese factory just like any other electronic gadget.

I guess it saves me a bit of money though, as things like this are impulse buys for me. If I walk into a place and the item I want is not in stock then I walk away, not feeling disappointed, but feeling slightly relieved that I haven't dumped a thousand or so on something that I don't really need, and that will ultimately end up in the junk drawer in a year or two. Yes, I'm certain apple saves me money in the long run

Rant over

[Ed Pummelon]

I already ordered my phone direct through Apple, but for kicks thought I'd see how the Orange website was doing. 24 hours after launch I still can't access the "My Offers" part of the site, same "overloaded" message as always.

I'm struggling to believe that they are still getting so much traffic that they can't serve those pages. Could it be that they have just put a blanket block on that part of the site?

[Itzoe]

	Quote:	Ed Pummelon
	I already ordered my phone direct through Apple, but for kicks thought I'd see how the Orange website was doing. 24 hours after launch I still can't access the "My Offers" part of the site, same "overloaded" message as always. I'm struggling to believe that they are still getting so much traffic that they can't serve those pages. Could it be that they have just put a blanket block on that part of the site?

They have really screwed up his time

[Gastro Gnome]

	Quote:	Ed Pummelon
	I already ordered my phone direct through Apple, but for kicks thought I'd see how the Orange website was doing. 24 hours after launch I still can't access the "My Offers" part of the site, same "overloaded" message as always. I'm struggling to believe that they are still getting so much traffic that they can't serve those pages. Could it be that they have just put a blanket block on that part of the site?

Yes, I suspect the server just puts out that message regardless of the load its handling now. Appalling.

So phoning works? Good idea.

[Nickers]

I went to the apple store last night about 8pm to buy an iPad. There were big ques for the phone. They were only letting people in as a new assistant became free. We were able to bypass the que as we weren't buying a phone. But I am really surprised by the nature of people to sit and que for something they could get easily in a week or so. Why so desperate to get the item on the day if it's obvious it won't be easy. Apples marketing and fan hysteria never ceases to amaze me

Typed on my iPad

[eng_ch]

	Quote:	Castro
	I'm in exactly the same boat (Optima 100) so its good to hear it from someone who's finally managed to reach the promised land. It does indeed sound like a good deal, and according to the email from Orange you should have until the 21st August to take advantage of the cash back.

I rang yesterday to find out what was what and I can simply extend my Optima 30 evidently. Since that's 40 a month instead of 49 for the Optima Surf, there's no point changing. Will ring today and order, I think

[Gastro Gnome]

So I called Orange.

I switched to an Optima Start plan with a CHF10 discount, so that should cost me only CHF29 a month. In addition there's a CHF160 bonus for renewing. I've ordered a 32gb iPhone 4. which will cost CHF429.

I went for the 24 month contract as I guess that this time next year when the iPhone 5 comes out, it will be more affordable . . . just as this one was. I'll order it direct from Apple next time.

The only snag . . . they've got no idea when they'll get new stock. I'm fairly relaxed about that though, I just wanted to sort the renewal out.

[Slaphead]

Popped to swisscom while in the city this morning just to put myself on the waiting list. 8-10 weeks they told me.

Might just go and buy an iPad for my toy fixation, but I'll probably have to wait for that as well

[magic]

Went to the Apple store down town Geneva this morning, the only queue was assistants wanting to help me buy 2 iphones

It is so good here you only have to get out of bed sometime in the morning to beat the Swiss crowds as most only seem to be able to get out of the front door after mid day.

	Quote:	magic
	Went to the Apple store down town Geneva this morning, the only queue was assistants wanting to help me buy 2 iphones It is so good here you only have to get out of bed sometime in the morning to beat the Swiss crowds as most only seem to be able to get out of the front door after mid day.

They had good stock at the Apple store in Geneva?

[magic]

	Quote:	porsch1909
	They had good stock at the Apple store in Geneva?

Yes, they have!

I passed the store some hours later and the queue had grown to about 5 people.

I find it quite funny as there are more security and people monitoring the lines for the queues than the people in the queue!

[esto]

	Quote:	Nicky
	But I am really surprised by the nature of people to sit and que for something they could get easily in a week or so. Why so desperate to get the item on the day if it's obvious it won't be easy. Apples marketing and fan hysteria never ceases to amaze me

Seriously. I'm a huge IT-junkie, I've got all kinds of phones/laptops/gadgets/etc. but I've never stood on line on "launch" day to buy something, and if the device I'm looking for isn't available, I've always got one or two others in mind that could do as well.

[mpk]

We're lazy and ordered a couple of unlocked iPhone 4s (life is, with the amount of moving around we do between different countries, too short to faff around with SIM-locked phones) online from Apple, which is showing a 3-week wait for delivery although I guess in reality it's more likely to be 2 or so.

However - anyone know what stock's like at the Zürich Apple store (Bahnhofstrasse or Glattzentrum)? There's a lot of talk about the Orange and Swisscom stores having multi-week waiting lists, but I'm wondering if Apple themselves have a more generous allocation (especially if they can sell them directly at full unlocked price).

[dawiz]

	Quote:	mpk
	We're lazy and ordered a couple of unlocked iPhone 4s (life is, with the amount of moving around we do between different countries, too short to faff around with SIM-locked phones) online from Apple, which is showing a 3-week wait for delivery although I guess in reality it's more likely to be 2 or so. However - anyone know what stock's like at the Zürich Apple store (Bahnhofstrasse or Glattzentrum)? There's a lot of talk about the Orange and Swisscom stores having multi-week waiting lists, but I'm wondering if Apple themselves have a more generous allocation (especially if they can sell them directly at full unlocked price).

According to some comments on Macprime, they're completely out of stock and they don't say when they'll get more phones (apparently for security reasons, no idea what they mean by that).

Swisscom now says it'll take 8 weeks for the next delivery to arrive. This is about the same as the waiting time in all other European countries. T-Mobile Germany says it's 9 weeks now. The fastest way to get an iPhone 4 at the moment is ordering one on apple.ch. It's still 3 weeks there (more like 4, if you read the comments on British forums). There are literally thousands of Germans ordering their phones from apple.uk using Borderlinx because ordering online from Britain only takes half as long as ordering from T-Mobile Germany. The reason for this is that with the iPhone 4, Apple has started to pre-lock the phones. Before, all iPhones were unlocked when they arrived in Switzerland and they were locked here in the distribution center or directly in the Apple Store. Now they come locked directly from China - and apparently locking for the European providers isn't exactly high on Foxconn's priority list. Waiting times in the US are much lower so it's likely that AT&T phones have priority.

Unlocked ones, however, arrive the fastest.

Peter

[mpk]

Thanks for that. Looks like the smart money is probably on waiting on the online order, then - with maybe the odd trip to the Apple Store just so they can laugh at me.

[dawiz]

	Quote:	mpk
	Thanks for that. Looks like the smart money is probably on waiting on the online order, then - with maybe the odd trip to the Apple Store just so they can laugh at me.

that's probably the best strategy for the impatient ones :-) It's quite possible that the Apple Stores will get small batches once in a while. You can order one online and if you get one from the Apple Store, cancel the order.

Peter