waitingforiphone.com has confirmed reports that newly purchased iPhone 3Gs from Apple and ATT stores in the US will be partially provisioned (or bricked) to only support E911 services when they leave the store, and a second activation step through iTunes will be required to fully activate the phone. In order to reduce the gray market for iPhones and force customers into contracts to pay for carrier subsidies, all iPhone purchasers will need to be ‘pre-qualified’ at time of purchase.
“It’s going to slow down sales a bit compared to last time, and we’ll have to open the box. Some customers aren’t going to like that,” said an unnamed ATT retail employee who asked not be named for this article.
ATT recently fired at least 119 employees over leaks regarding the infamous ‘8am memo’ that tipped many to a possible early morning launch of the iPhone 3G at 8am on July 11, 2008. This mass firing was touted to ATT managers by a regional VP as ‘promoting employees to customers’ for failing to heed the warnings about forwarding company correspondence outside of ATT.
“Unofficially, it’s 8am,” whispered an ATT store manager who asked not to be identified to waitingforiphone.com. ”There are more meetings this week so I’m sure we’ll get more details soon.”
There’s been a lot of discussion that ATT is either spreading rumors on purpose to ferret out potential leakers, or that they simply got it wrong. Opponents claim that with launch day demand and the new in-store activation requirement it only makes sense to start selling the new phones early in the day.
“We’re going to have plenty of product on July 11,” our ATT store manager told us. ”The only thing is if you buy the phone and try to activate the first day the system is going to be slow. You’ll have to get in line early.”
