FINAL (I Hope) Update:

 

3/22 - 10 AM - Jimmy showed up right on time, and spent close to two hours helping me with questions, and sourcing out a problem in the Outlook synching going back to when we imported all of the numbers from my old Razor in an attempt to get the Palm Centro working.
Another problem was in the way I had originally (and wrongly) entered my contacts into Outlook Express (years ago) and then moved them into Outlook when I updated (and upgraded) a year ago. I am now (slowly) working my way through my Outlook contacts, removing duplications, eliminating dead addresses (literally)  and changing the “Display As” settings to be able to synch with the iPhone.
The good news is that all is working, and I am rapidly falling in love with my iPhone.

 

WHEW!!!

Update:
3/21 at 8:10 PM

9 AM This Morning: I was the first person in the door at AT&T this morning; they were still counting the cash from yesterday, or setting it up for today.

Full Circle
The manager greeted me and apologized for the problems I have been having, and asked if I had considered getting the iPhone. I reminded him that I had originally come in to get the iPhone, but that the information I received turned me off. He apologized again, told me that they want to keep my business, and said that Jimmy is very up on the iPhone and that if I wanted to try it and had any problems that Jimmy could even come to my house to help me.

Jimmy on the Job
I said, “How about Jimmy getting in my car, with me, right now, and we go do just that?” He approved, so up to my office we went. Jimmy showed me how the iPhone works and I must admit I loved it right away. Now, he just had to make it work with my computer.

Working Uder Pressure
Jimmy spent close to three hours synching my computer up with the iPhone, getting the three e-mail addresses to work, and showing me how to use it. Remember now, I’m the guy never intending to touch a keyboard in my life. 

Team AT&T
1:30 PM - We returned to AT&T all smiles. I thanked Boyd, Jimmy and Richard for all of their assistance, and off I went, excited about using my new tool (Masae calls it a toy). I expected this picture to be the happy ending to this saga. Masae and I went to lunch at 2 PM and I began showing her how cool it is, BUT it wouldn’t send e-mail from one of my addresses.

That Does It!
I pictured myself just slamming it into the ground, but instead I called Jimmy and told him the problem. He began to tell me about a web site where I could go to get help, and I said, “No, I am bringing that phone to you right now along with my old Razor phone. I am going to leave it with you and go to my 3:30 appointment, and then return to AT&T. At that time I want it working, or everything returned to my Razor.” He said, “Okay”, and that’s what I did.
4:30 PM - I returned to AT&T and was informed that all was fixed. The problem was one wrong setting. I thanked everyone again and left. When I got to my car I decided to send e-mail to someone, and guess what… that’s right; NO GO! I went right back inside and discovered that some of the e-mail addresses in my Outlook did not get synched into the iPhone address book. I left somewhat discouraged and when I got home discovered just how many that was; TOO MANY!
Jimmy will be here at 10 AM in the morning; stay tuned. I am counting on a happy ending yet, as I really do like that phone.

 

3/20 at 8:10 PM - What a nightmare this has been! I am perhaps more frustrated now than ever. Something has told me for a long time not to mess with a handheld device, and I have failed to follow my feelings. After re-installing the software this evening and running the hot synch, it was worse than ever. I have another four hours of my time down the drain, and I command (and get) $500 an hour for teaching customer service.
I don’t think I am technically aware enough to even describe what’s happening. All I want at this time is to get my Razor back in working order, and my contract reverted back where it was - expired. That will leave my options open should I ever decide to do something crazy like this again.

3/20 at 4:30 PM - The latest is that I have a new Palm Centro that appears to be working. They suggested that the problem could have been caused by the hot synching process and I was told to call them if it happens again and they will look into that for me. Next is to do the scary hot synch and hope that I still have all of my data afterwards.

3/20 at 2 PM - This story is getting uglier by the minute. E-mail access from the AT&T Palm Centro has been erratic all day. I have shut it down and rebooted it numerous times. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. So, back to AT&T I went. This time I said that I need to deal with someone familiar with this product. Are you ready for this? The answer was, “None of us have been trained on it”. I was shocked and asked, “How many of these have you sold?” Are you ready for this? The answer was, “One.”
I said, “What do you suggest I do?” He said, “Well you could get a Blackberry, they are very reliable”. I reminded him that this all started with an attempt to upgrade my Palm Pilot and that the Blackberry would not synch with my Palm software. I asked, “What do you suggest?” He said, “Well, we could replace the sim card, or the machine itself, but I cannot guarantee you that it will work.” I asked, “What would YOU do?” He said, “I would get a new machine”.
So, as I type, my new AT&T Palm Centro is being set up, and I have come to my office to get the e-mail passwords for it. Once that is done I need to ask Jay to come back over here and synch my e-mail addresses and other data into the new machine. If that doesn’t work I will do one of two things;
1.) Give the Sprint Palm Centro a shot and leave AT&T for good. 
2.) Buy a new “simple” Palm Pilot and go back to hauling the laptop around.
If I get to this point, the answers I get from Sprint will determine my direction.
Stay Tuned!

UPDATE:

3/20 - 8:45 AM - The saga continues… When I logged in this morning it could not “locate the server”. I shut down and tried again… same thing. After the third re-start it worked! While that was nice, this is not something I will be able to live with, especially when traveling. I have been receiving a fair amount of e-mail on this situation, like this one I got this morning:

Ron,
How do they define “shutting it down” once a day?
I’ve never done this and have not had any problems.
Thx,
Pete

My friend Pete got his Centro from Sprint. I am starting to wonder if just MAYBE this is an AT&T issue. If so, I will be trotting down the street. I have been with AT&T (formerly Honolulu Cellular, then AT&T, then, Cingular, and back to AT&T) for about 25 years now. I would surely like to see this loyalty rewarded. 

3/18 I returned to AT&T and the tech there was able to get the e-mail working by changing outgoing settings we had set up. Don’t ask me why they worked the night before. While there I found out how to use the camera; cool!

3/19 I was starting to feel comfortable an continuing my self education. I was able to send and receive e-mail this morning. I went to the mall and bought some higher powered reading glasses. Then this afternoon it would not send or receive e-mail. Grrrr! I returned to AT&T and they were able to make it work by removing and replacing the battery. I commented that this is NOT something I want to do myself. I was then told that I need to be sure to shut it down completely at least once a day. My previous instructions were to do this every few days. I left happy again. Later, at dinner it would not send or receive e-mail. Grrrr! I shut it down and re-booted and it worked. I am now thinking that I may need to shut it down after every hot synch with my computer. I will find that out. This just doesn’t sound right to me.  

3/17

Well, I decided to go for it and buy the new Palm Centro from AT&T. As is often times the case, it all sounded pretty easy in the store.

Jay Jurick

My good friend, Palm Pilot and Internet Guru Jay Jurick then spent the next six hours in my office synching it into my two computers and setting up the e-mail. It worked once and then decided not to.
 

Next Step:
I will go back to AT&T tomorrow to see if they can get the e-mail to send and receive, as well as to get some tutorial on MANY other confusing features. The camera seems to take nice photos, but I cannot figure out where they go, and NO, we could not get the Palm software to synch into my two computers. Remember; I am the “retired guy” that was never going to touch a computer!!!

Here’s where this started 30 days ago ————————–

Pretty Slick, But…

People keep telling me how cool their iPhone is, but my eyes start glazing over as they attempt to impress me by demonstrating all of the features. Each time I get one of these “demonstrations” I feel completely unsold and sure that this isn’t the phone for me.

While at lunch the other day John Alves, president of Pacific Basin Communications gave me the best presentation yet. He held up his iPhone and said, “The instruction manual is only 8 pages, and is the size of this phone.” Now that was language I could relate to.

My mind was now opened up, so on Sunday I decided to drop by my at&t dealer to see what else I could learn. I came into the store, signed in, found the iPhone displays and began a self tutorial with one of the model phones. I giggled inside as I was able to easily add a link to this Blog on the home page of the demo phone.

I was doing a pretty good job of selling myself on the iPhone when I heard my name called. I told the salesperson that I was interested in the iPhone but had some questions. I was a bit surprised when he walked me to the register area instead of the iPhone models, but I followed him. Holding up my Razor phone I asked, “Can the data in here be transferred to the iPhone?” He quickly replied, “No”. Bad Answer! I suspected otherwise and said, “Really?” His response was, “Well not easily, it’s very complicated to do that”. Bad Answer!

When trying to succeed as a customer I don’t give up easily, so I said, “I don’t care how complicated it is, as long as you can do it”. He said, “We are not allowed to do it, you would have to do it yourself”. I was losing interest rapidly, but asked, “I have multiple e-mail addresses, can they all work on this phone?” He said, “No, only one”. Bad Answer!

Palm Centro
He then said that the new Palm Centro could handle as many as 10 e-mail addresses. I said, “Show me how that works”, and he said, “I can’t, it won’t be released until the 15th of the month”. I asked if there is a brochure or something that I could look at, and he said, “No, but you could Google it”, and wrote “Palm Centro” on a “Post It Note” for me. I thanked him and left. NO SALE!

I came home and typed Palm Centro into Google. The first thing I saw was that the phone was actually released in 2007 by Sprint. As I looked through the various Google links I found this You Tube Palm Centro tutorial. I couldn’t help but wonder, “Why couldn’t I get a presentation like this in the store?” I guess that I will stick with my Razor phone, at least until I run into a real “salesperson” somewhere.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 22nd, 2008 at 1:10 pm and is filed under Customer Experiences. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.