iPhone by Steve

By now just about everyone considering the purchase of an iPhone knows that the phone is actually activated through Apple iTunes. There is lots of info out there on the iPhone activation process, so I won’t rehash it here. If you want step-by-step instructions, there is a great guide over at iPhone Wave. The guide is several months old but I think still very useful. Or, just go to Apple’s website for their take on the subject.

For my own part, I took a few steps that I think made the process go a bit smoother. Here are a few tips:

• Whether you use a PC or a Mac, install or upgrade to the latest version of iTunes before you connect your phone. I’m not absolutely certain that this makes any difference, but if you do not have the latest version installed, you will be prompted to install it during your activation. So, I upgraded iTunes ahead of time, just to streamline things a bit.
• It helps if you already have an iTunes account. In my case, I just logged in and all my pertinent information was there, ready for the activation. You can activate with a major credit card as well.
• When I visited the AT&T store, the sales guy there approved my credit at the time I purchased my phone. If you buy the phone at the store, you will be more than likely be issued a receipt with this number on it. Ask the store representative to highlight or circle the number for you. You’ll need it when you activate.
• If you want to use your current mobile phone number and you plan to port your number over to your new phone, have a copy of your current wireless bill on hand. The porting process should go off without a hitch, but to be save, you’ll want to enter your current billing information exactly. The best way to handle this is to refer to your current bill while you activate.

After taking care of these preliminaries, I got ready for the big moment. I settled into my easy chair with the phone and my MacBook Pro, fired up the Mac, and…ugh!…no USB sync cord—I had forgotten to remove it from the iPhone box. Luckily, laying next to my chair was my trusty, old, iPod Mini, so I grabbed the cord and was good to go.

I’ve found that having a couple of cords is very convenient. I keep one USB cord in the bedroom, all plugged in, and I use that one for the daily chore of charging the battery. I’ve kept the second cord (the one from the iPod Mini) near my laptop, and that’s the cord I use to sync my iPhone.

After plugging my phone into the Mac, I carefully went through all the steps as iTunes asked me questions. Toward the end of the process, iTunes gave me the message that my activation would take additional time to complete. That annoyed me as I was expecting to see a screen telling me that my phone was activated and all set. As it turned out, the “additional time” was only about 15 minutes, after which I got an email telling me I was good to go.

During activation, I ported over my old phone number, so I was expecting to wait several hours or maybe overnight for my phone to be fully ready, but—-surprise!—my old number ported over really quickly.

I had read some horror stories about iPhone activation, and I must admit I was a bit nervous about activating the thing on my own. But I’m happy to report that everything went very well for me. The process was reasonably hassle free, and within an hour of starting, I was completely active and enjoying my new phone.

Next post: Did you know AT&T won’t insure your phone? What to do?