Confusing.
I've actually never bought an iPhone through Apple. Since 2007, across four brand new models (original, 4, 5 and first-gen SE) I've gone to my AT&T Store. The iPhone 5 (2012) and SE (2016), I paid cash, outright, for. They charged the $x99 pricing of whatever you saw at Apple's site, the keynotes, etc.
Yeah, they've started doing this recently.
All this stuff is confusing. I'd want them to go ahead and activate it for me, but I'd want to keep the same plan I've had for years and years and works great for me...lowest possible price, 300MB(!) data (which I never come close to going over as I live my entire life in and around wifi), unlimited talk, unlimited text (although most everyone I message is on iPhones and I can't remember the last time I saw a green carrier text, except the one in those group messages that keeps me from "leaving this conversation".
The store configurator adds $30 to the price if I select "activate yourself later" or something like that, which I never really have.
They don't do this on the iPhone SE. It's $399 no matter what I click or how I go about it. That number never changes, not that I see.
I honestly don't know what to expect. I do get confused on the lingo, process, etc.
They kinda present/phrase it all a bit weird, don't they? And I can't help but think "well, they count on people not fully grasping WTF is going on at times like this". I've been using cell phones since summer 2004 and I don't think I've ever had a sensible, straightforward or "well, of course...that makes all the sense in the world!" conversation at the phone store (AT&T in my case, but I've been to Verizon and Sprint stores with friends and it's the same thing). I truly believe you could go to the same store three times in one day, 2-3 hours apart, and ask three separate employees the exact same question and you'd get three complete different, contradicting answers.
"You can walk out of here today with a new iPhone, absolutely nothing out of pocket!"
"Bullshit."
"Well, there are actually some..."
"Exactly, but that's not what you said, is it? Bug off."
