Canadian iPhones in short supply

Today I finally took the plunge and decided to buy an iPhone. I figured that I had waited out the rush, done my research and decided on a plan, all that was left was to pick a colour and go pick it up. I’m one of those people that take forever to make a decision on purchases and having so many choices makes it even harder. The HTC reviews didn’t impress me, Android is too far away, and the Blackberry Bold, well it sounds like a pretty cool phone but the iPhone won me over. Since being connected to the web is my number one goal with a smart phone I figured the iPhone was probably my best bet. The decision was a big one for me, but once I started heading to the Fido store I was on a mission.

A short lived mission

I walked into a store here in Toronto, ready to stake my claim on an iPhone as I was greeted at the front with a “temporarily sold out” sign above the coveted iPhone demo. Now I did think that this was a possibility in my quest, but we are going into the 4th week now and I thought odds would be in my favour by now. I decided the next closest Fido was only a 20 minute walk, so I went there, only less hopeful this time. While there was no sign to greet me this time, still no iPhones. After months of research, ranting about over priced plans, and being tempted by other smartphones I finally cave and still can’t get one. Now my mission to get one has begun. I’m feeling a bit of Déjà vu, like this has happened once before, oh wait, it has with one of those elusive Wii consoles I searched for until I found one. I hope it won’t be that hard this time. Maybe I should just order online.

On a side note, I found a great way to tell another carrier you are canceling a plan without having them go into customer retention mode, well at least a phone or cell plan. Today I called Bell to tell them I would be canceling my phone line soon and wanted to know how fast they could set up a dry loop for my Internet (6 business days). Their first question was “why do you want cancel our service sir”. I said well, I would like an iPhone and don’t want to pay for two phone services and you don’t carry the iPhone. I’ve never heard an agent give up so easily, with the sound of resignation in her voice she just said “okay sir” and transferred me to the tech team to ask about the dry loop. That’s what you get when you have a Monopoly on a product—I fought the urge to buy one for several weeks, but it seems a whole lot of other people did not. Now I will join the ranks and pick up my over priced plan and make Rogers a little richer, at least until we have some real competition, then I’ll drop them like a hot potato.