My trusty 1st gen iPhone had a meltdown a few days back and decided to go on permanent holiday. It still works, syncs and all but one half of the screen is unresponsive to input. Crap. So faced with the decision to attempt a repair or wrap myself up in a two-year abusive marriage with AT&T, I set out to the mall on a bittersweet phone quest. Ailing iPhone in hand, attempting to get the screen to respond the whole way.

I arrive at the mall and after about two dozen attempts at reviving my old phone, I trudge through the heat into the mall and finally into the Apple store, which was really crowded for a Tuesday. I make my way back to the Genius Bar and sing my song to the first person who’ll listen and am rebutted with some nonsense about appointment schedules. Gah! Unduanted, I wander the store and one thing leads to another until eventually I’ve got someone’s slightly sympathetic ear. Success! Wait, no.

I’ve just been in formed at this point that the repair on my current phone will be around $200 and that it’ll be around 4:00 pm when they can get to it (timecheck: 10:37 am) and to add insult to injury, I am unable to procure a new phone because they are all out of stock on the iPhone 4. This representative then recommends that I try Radio Shack or Best Buy for iPhones. What? Ok, whatever.

I make my way down to good old Radio Shack and nope, out there and got kind of a funny look when I asked about it. So I saunter down to the bottom level of this here mall to the AT&T store. No customers, looks promising. Again I reluctantly sing my phone ballad to some guy who at first acts helpful, but wait, more fun in store!

He informs me that I can purchase a 3GS and secure an order for a 4 (as they too are mysteriously out of iPhone 4s at the moment), return the 3GS when the 4 arrives and it’ll cost me little more than a restocking fee. This saves me from buying a phone outright and having to figure out what to do with it later when I get what I really came around to do. Ok, I say, let’s do that. Great! He wanders in to the back to retrieve the 3GS and comes back some 15 minutes later with “good news” and “bad news,” which amounts to the salesperson’s manager wouldn’t allow for the iPhone swap deal thing but that they had magically found an iPhone 4 in the back. Fishy? Yep. The deal was that this iPhone 4 had to be purchased as a bundle, meaning I had to buy a case, car charger, screen protector and some other crap that jacked the total price to $370. Ok then, thanks for your time. Pass.

Back I go up to the Apple store and wander through the crowds until once again I find an eager audience to sing my woeful tale. Jackpot! This guy’s totally sympathetic to my situation and having gone from a 1st gen to a 4, has a little bit of a nostalgic look in his eye. So now the obvious question, why is everyone out of iPhones then suddenly seems to have them in the back just lying around? It appears that I was allowed to jump the waiting list due to my situation (broken phone) and circumstances what they were, I seem to have just run into the right sales guy, or specialist, or whatever they’re calling the people in these stores today.

So the transaction was incredibly smooth, it took only 8-10 minutes to move me from my old account to the new phone. I walked out of the Apple store happy and with a shiny new phone, emphasis on shiny. This thing kinda scares me a little bit. The idea of having a phone made of glass is a bit weird but I’ll deal.

As far as the complaints of signal cutting out when you hold it a certain way, I’ve none. Even despite my best efforts to actually get it to do that. I don’t use the bumper or case or whatever, mostly because they were out of them at the time. I do however need a case for this thing as I’m likely to drop it in the near future and don’t want that to happen in a public place because I’ll just cry and people will stare and laugh.

(tl;dr) iPhone 4 experience to date:
Phone itself, excellent and would recommend as an upgrade for those looking to do so. I’ve had no issues with signal loss and have actually tried really hard to get it to cut out.

Buying experience, totally weird. Seems there’s something funny going on but I’m one person with one story. If there are others who’ve run into the same thing I’d like to hear about it.