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CraigR

macrumors newbie
Sep 27, 2011
21
0
Waiting on line....

I know that when the 4 came out I tried to pre-order and was not successful in getting though, after the pre orders there were in store reservations which I got. When I arrived at the store in Reno NV @ 5am thinking I would see a hand full of people, there were over 300 without reservations and about 50 with. I got in the shorter line for the reservations and was out the door by 7:30A, new phone in hand. For the other 300 who knows. My guess is tried to get through and failed, cant wait 2 weeks for their phone to arrive, that is silly.

I got in on the pre-order at 4am PDT after trying until 2 am going to bed and waking up and thinking, ok one more try and bamm, ordered 2 in 2 tries 10 min sleep lost.

If its this bad for the 4S - wait until the real 5 shows up..
 

born4sky

macrumors 6502a
Mar 14, 2008
527
43
I didnt expect this at all... Thankfully I will be receiving my phone tomorrow by mail
 

CraigR

macrumors newbie
Sep 27, 2011
21
0
People?

hey Marc, same can be said about the the people that camp out at Best Buy for that 299.00 laptop deal. I mean really you are saving 200 bucks, what is your time worth to you? Go work at MCDonnalds for 20 hours and you will have that 200 you saved and get your fricken laptop.

People are sheep.
 

mds

macrumors 6502
Oct 6, 2006
288
0
I want to get a 4s, but I'm not waiting in line for one. I'll probably wait till next week. How long does it usually take for the lines to calm down?
 

moseleyite

macrumors member
Feb 21, 2008
75
0
Birmingham UK
The thing is the store would need to set a time to start giving the tickets out, otherwise people would be there a week early to pick the tickets up.

So if there is a set time that the tickets get given out, people would line up hours in advance for the tickets.

And call me cynical but some people, not interested in the 4s would grab a ticket and then sell it for a fortune... hang on, why aren't I on a train to London?

*slaps forehead*
 

Trauma1

macrumors 6502a
Jun 15, 2009
585
2
Why the heck can't they give these people numbers and tell them to come back tomorrow? Seems cruel to make them wait all night when all the store needs is proof they were there first.

They're already putting out barriers and such, so they obviously have the fact that people will be waiting in mind. Is it that hard to set up a ticket system?

Because it's too early to give out tickets. The products don't show up in the stores until the very last possible minute. And they're on tight lock down. The store employees don't actually know how many units they have until they start selling them. So there's no point giving out tickets to people if they physically don't have the item in stock. What's the point of being ticket number 101 if there's only 100 units in stock?

I waited in line for the iPhone 4 and iPad 2. The employees happily went around the line updating everyone, saying: "We haven't received them yet. We just received the shipment and are counting them. Now we're handing out tickets, which color and which model would you like?" Then they hand out tickets once they know how many of each type that they have, and also to let people know before they unnecessarily wait in line. They actually admit that they don't know how many they have.
 
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HarryKeogh

macrumors 6502a
Jun 25, 2008
609
863
Maybe if I was 18 or so this would interest me. Making an experience out of it and all. But at 40 years old I'd rather eat poison or be stuck in a two-year Droid contract than wait in line overnight.

This old man needs his sleep.
 

dgree03

macrumors 65816
Jan 8, 2009
1,177
0
These people are stupid! Grow azz people standing in line for a damn phone, GTFO! This is unreal!
 

b11051973

macrumors 6502
Apr 8, 2006
426
543
I was at the Apple Store in Edina, MN to buy a bumper earlier. No sign of a line there.
 

trip1ex

macrumors 68030
Jan 10, 2008
2,888
1,421
Why the heck can't they give these people numbers and tell them to come back tomorrow? Seems cruel to make them wait all night when all the store needs is proof they were there first.

They're already putting out barriers and such, so they obviously have the fact that people will be waiting in mind. Is it that hard to set up a ticket system?

Who cares.
 

daviddth

macrumors 6502a
Jun 29, 2009
787
104
Australia
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

iPhone 4S line in George Street Sydney is about 250 meters long, and we have been here since 8:30 pm last night 10.5hrs now.
 

Shrink

macrumors G3
Feb 26, 2011
8,929
1,727
New England, USA
I hate those idiots waiting in line for a mobile phone. They're the cancer of the consumer society.

I also think it's a bit much to sit outside a store for days on end to get a new product (especially when you can pre-order).

But don't you think the post is just a little over the top?

"cancer of the consumer society"??!! :eek:

I may think they're silly, but they're not doing any harm, that I can see.
 

*LTD*

macrumors G4
Feb 5, 2009
10,703
1
Canada
Wasn't this supposed to be a flop because it didn't have ridiculous specs and a flame-thrower attached?

Oh wait, Apple devotes themselves to perfecting the User Experience. Best way to flop-proof your products.

:apple:
 

CraigR

macrumors newbie
Sep 27, 2011
21
0
regarding tickets.

This is what you do, you give out 1-xxx tickets. then at 6 am you pull a random "starting" ticket from a hat. that is your starting point, so lets say ticket 169 is pulled, 169 just one the iphone lottery and 170-171... and so are 2, 3,4 in line to the end of your ticket count then starts at 1.

Everyone has a fair shot at being first without hard time on the hard ground. and no mess to clean up from people camping out at your store for days, drinking and eating and all the the other humanisms.

Be there at 6 am everyone gets lined up.. thats it!.
 

Rcflex

macrumors member
Oct 10, 2011
56
0
Palm Springs, CA
What would suck is you wait in line for hours and hours to be the next next one in and they say sorry were all sold out... Happened to me with a game system, It really sucked... So now I just pr-order things...
 
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