iPad Fail

While in Seattle I subscribed to the 3G service for my iPad. It worked beautifully. And the moment the wheels of the plane touched down in Atlanta, I turned on the iPad. Minutes later, and then hours later, it still had no data service; no Edge and no 3G.

AT&T Level 1 support kicked me up to AT&T Level 2 support which kicked me over to Apple iPad support which sent me into an AT&T retail store to replace the SIM card. But AT&T retail stores don't have the iPad micro-sim cards (yet).

I made a Genius Bar appointment and they swapped out the SIM card (why didn't Apple encourage me to visit an Apple store?), and then the Apple Genius and I walked down a hundred feet from the Apple Store to an AT&T mall cart, where I met the least inspired and least helpful AT&T employee ever. With some effort I got him to call AT&T customer support and update the SIM card number on my account. And finally all was well.

Overall it wasn't a terribly painful experience, especially given that it was only a couple of hours in duration from start to finish, but it sure did involve talking to a lot of people.