The Rocky Mountain Collegian

Issue date: 7/11/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Associated Press

Apple's long-awaited iPhone, which hit shelves June 29, has already made its impact known in Colorado with almost every store having sold its first shipment. But some students are finding it's not so easy to join in the craze over the new gadget.

At least one CSU student found a major problem when trying to activate an iPhone. Sam Gonzalez, a sophomore art major, was excited to purchase the iPhone, but when he went home to activate his service online, he was denied and told to go to a local AT&T store.

On arrival, Gonzalez was told due to his lack of credit history, he would be forced to pay a $500 deposit to AT&T, in addition to the $499 already paid for the phone. Gonzalez decided not to activate and returned his phone.

"I think its ridiculous that a $500 deposit is required for the right to pay them," Gonzalez said.

Vanessa Smith, a spokesperson for AT&T, says it is common practice to run credit checks on all phones, and not just iPhones.

Gonzalez believes he is not the only one dealing with the problem.

"I'm sure the majority of college students are in the same boat with little credit history," Gonzalez said.

But for some college students - namely students at the University of Wyoming - getting an iPhone is simply out of reach. The iPhone is not available in Wyoming because the iPhone's lone service provider, AT&T, does not have any service stores in Wyoming.

Wyoming may eventually be able to have iPhones, Smith said.

"No decisions have been made, but we would seek roaming agreements with other carriers," she said.

In addition to the standard phone features that the iPhone users, the phone also comes complete with internet access, a camera, a video and multimedia player and a music player similar to the iPod. Apple's CEO Steve Jobs has said that Apple filed more than 200 patents stemming from the iPhone's contents.

Despite this technological breakthrough, Patrick Burns, vice president of Information Technologies at CSU, says he isn't ready to call the iPhone the next big thing in wireless.

"I think it is still to be determined whether it will be successful, the jury's still out. It certainly is a neat evolution," Burns said. "The iPod has stuck, it will be interesting to see which new phones are going to stick."

According to Burns, there are three major problems in PDA's that were not solved by the iPhone. The phone's lack of anti-spam and anti-viral software; the inability to have encryption on the phone's memory cards; and flaws in the iPhone's connectability with VPNs, or Virtual Private Networks, make the iPhone far from perfect.

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