I’m beginning to think that I am somewhat cursed when it comes to getting an iPhone on launch day. Last year, I stood in line at an Apple store for hours and then was told to go to AT&T since I had a FAN discount on my account, which Apple could not work with. AT&T ran out of iPhones just before I made it into the store, but I asked them to cancel my FAN discount so I could at least go back to the Apple store to get one. I was able to get one at the Apple store and the whole adventure took from 7:00 am to 2:00 pm. I was not happy.

This year, FedEx became the bane of my existence. Everything looked good as I tracked the progress of my iPhone 3G S online, until 9:00 am passed and it still wasn’t on a truck for delivery. I called FedEx then, asking if it was going to make it on a truck and throwing out the idea of picking it up at the facility if not. The CSR I spoke to said that it probably would make it onto a truck for delivery, but it probably wouldn’t arrive by the 3:00 pm deadline. Great. She encouraged me to track it again in a couple of hours, and said that it if it was still at the sorting facility, I could just go and pick it up there. Lo and behold, it made it onto a truck at 11:01 am.

Then, the unthinkable happened.

Merely 49 minutes later, the following error showed in the tracking status:

I shall not repeat here the foul words that issued forth from my mouth upon seeing this loathsome error, though they were vile indeed. Suffice it to say that, had the FedEx driver heard me, I would surely have been challenged to a duel of some sort so that he could defend his own honor, as well as that of his mother and any farm animals with which he had crossed paths in the past.

Of course, this prompted another call to FedEx, in which I painstakingly provided directions to my house, as well as wondering aloud why FedEx could not find my house after several successful attempts to get packages to me in the past year. WTF, BBQ? The CSR confirmed that my house was in their database and promised to send the directions to the driver immediately.

A short while later, I saw a FedEx truck drive down the main street outside of our neighborhood. Alas, it did not turn and continued away from me. At 1:29 pm, FedEx tracking showed that my package was back at the local sorting facility. Bastards.

At this point, I called FedEx yet again and asked them to hold the package for me to pick it up. I ate a hasty lunch and then made my way to FedEx. I picked it up with no problems and opened it up in the car to ensure all was well. In the box, my new iPhone 3G S sat happily, unaware of the angst I had suffered all day in waiting to see it.

After I got home and immediately started the process to switch to the new iPhone, I called FedEx to file a complaint. How on earth could they have found me at least 20 times in the past year but failed to do so on the one day that I was anxiously awaiting an on-time delivery? The CSR I spoke to was nice and apologized, but the damage was done. FedEx, you have failed me. In the words of Jean-Baptiste Emmanual Zorg, “I am very disappointed.”

FedEx failure aside, I am quite enamored of my iPhone 3G S. It is indeed wicked fast compared to my iPhone 3G, and I am quite enjoying the video recording and voice command capability. I’ve already recorded videos of my dog doing nothing in particular and have used the voice command feature with great success to control playback during lawn mowing. And, I am thrilled that the volume controls on the Apple In-ear Headphones with Remote & Mic, which I had purchased to replace my broken V-Moda Vibe Duo headphones, work with the 3G S, as expected.

I’m working on my comparison review between the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3G, and first-generation iPhone now. One reader has already suggested covering the speed differences between the devices, and I welcome any other suggestions of things you’d like to see in the review – feel free to comment on this post, send an email to me at marianne at macgirl dot net, or use my contact page here.