Activate your iPhone with iTunes

I was going to write an awesome post today predicting that when you buy an iPhone, you could just take it home and activate it via iTunes rather than sitting around the store doing paperwork. I'm glad I didn't spend a lot of time writing about said theory, because Apple just announced it as fact.

There are several reasons why you could see this coming:

- Activating a cell phone sucks. You sit there and fill out paper (paper! what year is this?) forms, get pressured to buy insurance, etc. Clearly not an Apple-like experience.

- Store people steal the out-of-box experience from you, including non-Apple people working at AT&T stores. That's not acceptable.

- Apple's "Get ready for iPhone" page says "To set up your iPhone, you’ll need an account with Apple’s iTunes Store." Big hint there.

- This is the only way they could hope to sell zillions of iPhones quickly, on Friday and beyond. Can you imagine waiting around for people to sign up for contracts while dozens of folks are in line?

- Apple is going to sell the phone via mail order, so remote activation is a good idea anyway.

- The iTunes Store already has your credit card and identity info, so setting you up for a phone plan isn't that hard.

UPDATE: Apple has posted a video that shows iPhone activation and sync.

Comments

[Marshall]

But you have to give Apple your Social Security number.