Great experience, made new friends, could have had a gold or silver but didn't
San Francisco west coast flagship store... I saw on these forums at about 5pm that there was a dozen people in line. I quickly got myself to the store after stocking up with things (chair, food, water, ipad, laptop etc). I arrived around 7pm. I was #18 in line. The line continued to grow all night. It hit the first block long by around 2-3am, then the second block at about 5-6am. Everyone in those 2 blocks got a phone. Our store is well stocked, because, well flagship store.
I had my choice of ANY phone, but I didn't really like the gold, so I skipped it. I was told there were 6 x 64GB ATT gold iPhones. SIX. Maybe 50 total. Another 50 silver. Given that, what chance did YOU have of getting a silver/gold? None I think.
We had a lot of press on the line in the AM, from LA Times, CNET, Macworld and smaller bloggers (cult of mac). Gave a few interviews. Quoted in a few stories.
In terms of crazy stuff, a few things happened:
- around 9-10pm some homeless dude decided I was "beautiful to him" and was being really friendly. This is what you get for not treating people like scum apparently! It was ok, but I got more hugs from him than my gf that day.
- A little later someone we dubbed "team android" threw a **** fit because APPARENTLY (according to her) some homeless dudes were annoying her, and the apple store employees "wouldnt call the cops". I'm like "well maybe you should call the cops". She ended up throwing a big gulp at the curtain they had erected in front of the store. She "threatened" to buy an Android and yelled various "anti-apple" things. Everyone was greatly amused at her.
Cop presence:
- A foot patrol walked past when I was changing my pants on the street. I think they were there to move the homeless dude on but he had already left.
- No overnight cop presence. No homeless harassment. A quiet night all in all. Luckily a 24-hour starbucks was 2 blocks away.
- In the AM two foot patrol officers showed up (the street is closed for subway construction). They mostly just chilled. They 'carried' some dude by the upper arms (a sort of "you are coming this way with us" thing) he seemed slightly agitated but I didn't otherwise recognize him.
I was in the store at 8:05, out at 8:30, complicated by my credit card company wanting a voice referral call. Interestingly the Apple guy I purchased from I had just a week ago purchased an Macbook Air from.
My 64gb ATT (grey) iPhone... had a speck of DUST in the screen. I headed back to the Apple store at 7pm, and they managed to magic up a replacement phone for me. "This was probably for an employee or manager". They had sold out of all but sprint 5s by that time. Thanks guys, you rule!
Also since I was quoted in that cult of mac blog, when I went back Saturday to buy another lightning cable, the front of store associate recognized me. That's some serious rock star status right there!
