I stopped up at the local Apple store around 7:30 am, on my way to the office. I was hoping the line would be somewhat short and I could just sneak into work late. But the line was way longer than the previous year. I’ve included a map of the Apple store to show the length of the line just before store opening both years...
From the place in line last year, it took about an hour to get into the store. This was when there were no options or activations. Simply, “How many do you want?”
Obviously, I’m not waiting in this line and still making it to the office at any reasonable time.
At Pizza Friday, convinces to drive by the Apple store to see how the line was. It was a bit out of our way, but we figured we could make it. As we headed there we got stuck in a bad construction zone. We sat mostly dead stopped for a good 15 minutes, and finally Craig made the call to abort. We ended up being 30 minutes late from lunch, and never even got to see how long the line was. Based on later observations, it wouldn’t have mattered.
Throughout the day, news reports of sell outs at the AT&T stores were hitting the web. I found out that the AT&T stores were only getting shipments of 30 to 50 phones.
At 4:55 pm, I went back up to the Apple store. Now the line was slightly shorter than the blue line pictured above. I asked one of the uniformed trained professionals how slowly the line was moving. He said it was about a three hour wait at the end. “But,” he offered, “we are open until 11:00,” so I might be able to come back later.
I decided to do the normal Friday night routine – which is fast food and video games at , who lives conveniently close to the Apple store.
After getting thumped 4-2 in MLB 2K8 for the Wii (my pitcher fell apart in the 7th, and my dual one-run homers were not enough to rally the troops), I left Justin’s and headed back to the Apple store. I got there around 10:15 pm, and was told by the manager that she had to shut the line down at 7:00 because it was just too long and too slow. I pleaded with everything I could think of, including, “my wife will be mad if I come home without an iPhone,” but she wasn’t letting me in the line.
Now I’m in a quandary. It’s a bit of a trip from my house to what we refer to as, “down the hill.” And since there’s no way to determine how long the line is without going there, that was even more troubling. I could drive down and end up with the same four hour line as before. I really didn’t want to go through that.
For no apparent reason, I thought of calling the AT&T store that is somewhat close to my house. The guy on the phone said they still had some iPhones left, but he had no idea how many or how long they would last. Not wanting to be disappointed, I planned a trip to the Home Depot across the street and would “stop in” the AT&T store.
When I got there, there was no line.
This could be good because maybe no one in the “high desert” knew about the phone. It could be bad though, because maybe they were already sold out.
I walked in the door, and a slightly rude man, wearing an un-tucked brown stripped shirt and no name tag, ushered be back out. He said, “Everyone has to wait outside.” I looked around for this “everyone” he was referring to. Then I went outside and stood next to the door for about 10 or 15 minutes. As I stood there, four more people arrived. Two old ladies just wanted to pay their bill, one middle aged guy just wanted to know what he was in line for, and a Jamaican looking man with dreads wanted the new iPhone.
I’ve heard about people who get in line without knowing why, but I’ve never seen it before. No kidding, the third guy came in and stood with us for about 5 minutes, and then asked, “What are you guys waiting for?” I mentioned that I wanted the new iPhone and pointed to the display. The two old women said, “We just wanted to pay our bill, I don’t even know what this new phone is.” So the guy says, “Oh, what’s the story on this new phone?”
He left right before I got into the store.
When I got into the store, I asked for a black one, preferably an 8 GB, and was informed they had no 8 GB models left. I was just happy to not get stuck with a white one. I still don’t know if I would have given it back or learned to adjust. The clerk, Dan, asked for my phone number, typed in a couple things, and then scanned in a slip of paper that looked like a photocopy of the back of the iPhone box. He goes to the back room and comes back with the iPhone box. He then pulls the phone out of the box and plugged it into his computer (without removing the plastic film, mind you). I think it was running Windows XP. The phone made its signature bleep sound, he unplugged it and said it would be a minute.
As we waited, Dan asked me where I worked. I told him the name of the company, and he said, “Well... how about we say you work at Starbuck’s and it’ll get you 10% off your monthly bill?” I told him that I would, in no uncertain terms, deceive AT&T for a discount.
That’s a lie. I took the 10% discount.
Dan also told me that he had people wait over two hours in line the day before, only to be told they didn’t qualify for an AT&T contract. Suck.
After the minute, the phone magically turned on. Dan picked up the phone, handed it to me and said, “There you go. Have a nice day!”
Heck yeah, I just got my new iPhone. I
do plan to have a nice day.
