Apple posts Activate and Sync video

Alongside the announcement that your iPhone will be activated through iTunes, Apple posted a video walkthrough of the activation and sync process. The video, hosted by the same “Bob” (now “John Appleseed”?) of the guided tour, shows you all about activation and syncing in gory detail. Here are a few notes that I jotted down while watching:

* Number portability is available for existing customers. Hurrah!
* Family plans are available.
* Existing customers can keep their current number of add a new line.
* The cheapest plan, $59.99, has 5000 night and weekend minutes while the $79.99 and $99.99 plans have unlimited.
* You can add additional text messages for a fee.
* Existing customers can keep their current plan, and just add the unlimited data package (presumably for $20/mo.).
* Bob/John is 34 years old.
* Your social security number is required for AT&T’s credit verification, but is not stored by Apple.
* Bob doesn’t take the time to read the EULAs. Shame on Bob.
* Syncing works pretty much identically to an iPod, with the added ability to sync email accounts and Safari bookmarks.
* We can’t rule out the ability to sync at least some info over Bluetooth, but it’s not mentioned anywhere.
* Back in January, iTunes had a “Ringtones” tab when the iPhone was connected. It appears to be gone now. Is Apple keeping yet another announcement up their sleeves?
* You can sync contacts from Address Book or your Yahoo! Address Book.
* Calendars can sync from iCal or Entourage.
* Bob: “iPhone may also work with your current corporate email system, so check with your company’s IT department.” I wonder if that was added as a result of the foofaraw over Exchange support.
* Bookmarks can sync with Safari on the Mac, Safari or IE on Windows.
* When the graph is displayed at the end, it claims that Bob’s iPhone has 74.4 GB of total storage. I’m guessing they used an 80GB iPod graph, since it would look a little clearer than 8GB of iPhone storage. [Thanks to reader Carsten for pointing it out]

And that’s about it.

Category: News

Posted by Dan Moren on Jun 26 2007, 10:51 AM ET

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