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Apple Store London to open November 21

I got in the que at 5:30pm and counted myself as No. 46 in the que, was next to the two guys with space blankets (very sound guys, programmers working in Soho SQ.). Despite the moans, I was pleased with my Lucky Bag. (I got the isight) ok so I don't actually need any of the stuff, but still a bargain for £248 and to be fair to Apple they have been advertising the approximate contents of the bag here http://www.apple.com/uk/retail/regentstreet/luckybag.html for some time! I still laugh when I think about Sabzi trying to close from about 11:00 pm onwards but not being able to get empty enough to leave the counter 🙂 VERY cold but a great night thanks every one.

I didn't really see any que jumpers (apart from those idiots who arrived at about 5:00 in that clapped out Mini and pushed in the front, well done to the Police on that one) The problem was in the store when to start with there was a mass dive for the tills, loads of people got ahead of me, the two guys behind me in the que had left the store whilst I was still way back in the que for the tills. The store que was where the issue arose (I took some video which I will try to post at some point) .
 
jrwo said:
It feels as if I'm going on about this, but it also *really* feels like a classic style over substance error. Keeping the queue honest would have been very easy, but effort went into organising staff to do laps of the building instead. It all felt a bit Bang & Olufsen...
Click to expand...

I agree... some of those poor staff looked like they were going to die by the time they got back to staff entrance (I was stood right next to it).

I'm a little peeved by the lack of lucky bag, but if anyone has a 10% giftcard they are willing to exchange for something or aren't going to use I would be eternally grateful!

Adam

Edit: Just found this on eBay, so even more annoyed now. I queued for 12 hours, this guy has two lucky bags, one of which he is selling. Go figure.
 
My thoughts...

Right, this is what I got:

Wireless Mouse 59
Wireless Keyboard 59
Keynote 79
Airport Express 99.01
.mac 69
Jam Pack 79
Pro Care 99
d-link 34.94
iLife 39
iSight 119


Total: £735

and that's not counting the London DVD (why??? we live here) and the World Book stuffs.

Overall, am pretty happy with the lucky bag (my mate OTOH wasn't so pleased, but managed to flog it for £250 out in the queue). I'm planning to sell my t-shirt on ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=5141485241&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT

What made the freezing cold night bearable was the atmosphere of all the people here - esp. whoever was giving out the beer! cheers!

I plan to post some more pics up on my .Mac (which I have now!) later today!

Just want to say thanks to everyone here!
 
Video of the opening

Hello all. Well, my last post in this thread was #25 asking who was camping-out. Turned out to be rather a lot of you 🙂

In the end I wimped-out of doing the queueing thing, but, as it turned out, I was actually really pleased with that decision. OK, I didn't get a t-shirt, which was what I really wanted, but I did get to be right in front of the entrance when the doors were opened, the ribbon cut, and the first people let into the store. The atmosphere was electric and I'm so glad I got to see that.

The good news for those who were shivering in the queue who missed it first hand is that I managed to get some reasonably good footage of the opening which I'm now able to share with you.

Now, bear with me here. I've not got enough time this week to do a decent job on iMovie, so this is very amateurish footage. The hand holding the camera was very cold, the anti-shake on my camcorder is useless and I was being jostled the whole time by others trying to get a good view and take pictures. Also, I don't have anywhere to host this except on my own server, which means until someone mirrors it, the total available bandwidth to the internet is only 256Kb/s!!! The video is 22 minutes long and about 63MB. So, this is really only for those who are on flat-rate services.

OK, disclaimers out the way. Here it is :

http://stapleton.homeunix.net/movies/regentstreet.mov

If you're familiar with curl you might want to use that to grab this instead of clicking that link 😉

Enjoy, and if anyone is interested in a better quality copy just drop me an email : surfsofa {at} gmx {dot} net

Well done to you hard core people who stuck out those cold nights 🙂
 
hexdcml said:
Right, this is what I got:

Wireless Mouse 59
Wireless Keyboard 59
Keynote 79
Airport Express 99.01
.mac 69
Jam Pack 79
Pro Care 99
d-link 34.94
iLife 39
iSight 119


Total: £735
Click to expand...

I think you're £20 high on the ProCare, the sticker on the Jam Pack here is £69 and the London guide is marked at £10 - so £715 plus whatever the Encyclopedia's worth. Though from the bags me and my sister got, it must be listed at £38 or so - we got the same set, but with the JBL speakers rather than the iSight.
 
as2 said:
I agree... some of those poor staff looked like they were going to die by the time they got back to staff entrance (I was stood right next to it).

I'm a little peeved by the lack of lucky bag, but if anyone has a 10% giftcard they are willing to exchange for something or aren't going to use I would be eternally grateful!

Adam

Edit: Just found this on eBay, so even more annoyed now. I queued for 12 hours, this guy has two lucky bags, one of which he is selling. Go figure.
Click to expand...

the buy probably came with his wife/son/daughter so it could be legit.

what place were you told you were in the que ?
 
Hey mfluderx, thanks for the great atmosphere and the odd pice of big red to keep me going.

I have some photos and may post them later if I get round to it.

One thing I learnt from the night was how great beds are, I think we can all agree on that one 😀
 
10% Discount Card stacks!!!

I just went back to the Apple shop again just now to take some pics since I was holding too many things to take pictures of the inside on Saturday. Apparently, the 10% discount card DOES stack with student and HE discounts. So for all students who got the lucky bag and are planning to sell them I will suggest reconsidering at least keeping the card 🙂 I know I am!

And to those unlucky not to get a bag even though you were within the first 300 all I can say is that it was bad luck and the way Apple delegated the queue. I was around 125-135th in line and I knew a bunch of people in front and behind me. What happened when you walked in was there were 2 queues for the lucky bag, one on the right and one on the left, the right one streched way longer, going along the walls back and forth whereas the left one was one short straight line. So people who got allocated the left line were much faster and that means ppl further behind the line could "jump" the people ahead. This was easily verified when the bunch of guys behind me got their lucky bags around 15 minutes before me because they were in the left line. Let's all hope Birmingham's and Kent's ones go much better.
 
Hi Rob, think you have me mixed up with my mate miock (Mike) he's the Cinnamon Guy, see http://everythingcinnamon.com/, I was the other guy (with the glasses).

Good idea to post the photos, as not that many around of all of us in Princes Street.

I wholeheartly agree about the beds, I think Starbucks could have lent you and Nick a couple of chairs, it's not like you were going anywhere and it was nice of them to give out free coffee after we went to McD and brought some.
 
Yes did have you messed up 😛

here is a photo of us though 🙂
1.jpg

9.jpg

10.jpg


Some other random ones, post if you are in them 🙂
6.jpg

7.jpg

8.jpg


The store
2.jpg

3.jpg

4.jpg

5.jpg


I have bigger versions if anyone wants them 🙂

There is a video here of the first 200 odd people too.(very dark though)
 
Robmcm said:
Yes did have you messed up 😛

What with me, I was the handsome one 🙂

Great pictures and proof that I was actually there

here is a photo of us though 🙂
<snip>
Click to expand...

thanks rob, I have split my bits up and put them on ebay, now if I can get enough money it's going towards the ipod photo, what a wonderful bit of kit!

miock
 
" The question of the day must be, who on earth was that weird man/woman/goth who arrived right at the last minute and managed to get interviewed and get in the pictures everywhere??? "

Twas I 🙂 Was glad to see my photo on the apple grand opening page, but disappointed to see only one - spent about 15mins doing a photo shoot with the apple photographer! She said we were the most interesting people who turned up. Try harder next time! If you have any photos/videos of me or know where to find them I'd appreciate it (see linked pic if unsure who I am, add a hat), as I managed to forget my camera. I didn't quite turn up last minute, just decided to get a Taxi down before the tubes started as I assumed that would be when it starts packing up... and it's hard to look this good and keep warm ^.^

http://www.geocities.com/mentalfabricmusic/handeyecoordination.jpg
 
Rob, great photos, shame I forgot the batteries for my camera, can you email me the top photo (with me in the middle looking cold) to mfluderx at mac dot com, cheers as it would be nice to have proof that I was actually there. 🙂
 
surfsofa said:
The good news for those who were shivering in the queue who missed it first hand is that I managed to get some reasonably good footage of the opening which I'm now able to share with you.

Now, bear with me here. I've not got enough time this week to do a decent job on iMovie, so this is very amateurish footage. The hand holding the camera was very cold, the anti-shake on my camcorder is useless and I was being jostled the whole time by others trying to get a good view and take pictures. Also, I don't have anywhere to host this except on my own server, which means until someone mirrors it, the total available bandwidth to the internet is only 256Kb/s!!! The video is 22 minutes long and about 63MB. So, this is really only for those who are on flat-rate services.

OK, disclaimers out the way. Here it is :

http://stapleton.homeunix.net/movies/regentstreet.mov

If you're familiar with curl you might want to use that to grab this instead of clicking that link 😉

Enjoy, and if anyone is interested in a better quality copy just drop me an email : surfsofa {at} gmx {dot} net

Well done to you hard core people who stuck out those cold nights 🙂
Click to expand...

for the love of god, will somebody *pleease* mirror that movie. I dont mind mirroring it, i have loads of bandwidth to give away, but I cant get hold of the actual original file.

for me its going at around 0.01kb/s.... 🙁 It's driving me mad!!

Does anyone have a copy?

--asif
 
asif786 said:
for the love of god, will somebody *pleease* mirror that movie. I dont mind mirroring it, i have loads of bandwidth to give away, but I cant get hold of the actual original file.

for me its going at around 0.01kb/s.... 🙁 It's driving me mad!!

Does anyone have a copy?

--asif
Click to expand...

Or set up a bittorrent 🙂
 
Robmcm said:
Or set up a bittorrent 🙂
Click to expand...

I would If I knew how. Ok, the download seems to be going at around 6k/sec now, should be done by 10pm will post a link at around 11-ish if possible.
 
Birmingham Apple store

Hi there people
Just a very quick question. Due to circumstances i arrived at moor street station with 40 minutes to spare and being right next to the Bull Ring Shopping Centre I thought time to do a bit of detective work and find out where the apple store is going to be. Anyway got some photos etc. Was wondering whether to set up a new forum cos i assume this will become a talking point in the next few months or just to tag it on the end of the london one and let this slowly change into a british store one. If people think a new one can i as a newbie set up a new forum if not can someone set it up and I'll post probably in the next hour or so. Still got to download the photos, plus brought myself a 20"imac, new 12"ibook etc and only just got back to brum.
 
Doctor Q said:
With the store not open yet, how did they already post a photo of "another satisfied customer" in the store?
Click to expand...

Hi the caption was just a joke. That was our News Editor, Jonny, posing...but the Genius DID help him fix his Mac at the time...first customer really. ;-)

Gillian
MW UK
 
MentalFabric said:
" The question of the day must be, who on earth was that weird man/woman/goth who arrived right at the last minute and managed to get interviewed and get in the pictures everywhere??? "

Twas I 🙂 Was glad to see my photo on the apple grand opening page, but disappointed to see only one - spent about 15mins doing a photo shoot with the apple photographer! She said we were the most interesting people who turned up. Try harder next time! If you have any photos/videos of me or know where to find them I'd appreciate it (see linked pic if unsure who I am, add a hat), as I managed to forget my camera. I didn't quite turn up last minute, just decided to get a Taxi down before the tubes started as I assumed that would be when it starts packing up... and it's hard to look this good and keep warm ^.^

http://www.geocities.com/mentalfabricmusic/handeyecoordination.jpg
Click to expand...

ok point taken, but it's hard to look one's best after 15 hours out in cold, at least your are a mac owner/users so all is forgiven now, power to you. I imagined that you were just an opportunist, trying to get your picture into the media rather than a mac person.

miock
 
miock said:
ok point taken, but it's hard to look one's best after 15 hours out in cold, at least your are a mac owner/users so all is forgiven now, power to you. I imagined that you were just an opportunist, trying to get your picture into the media rather than a mac person.

miock
Click to expand...

I was actually an apple engineer at one point, but I threw it all away for life in the fast lane 🙄 😀 I'm considering going for a part time guru/muse/engineer position at the store...
 
MentalFabric said:
I was actually an apple engineer at one point, but I threw it all away for life in the fast lane 🙄 😀 I'm considering going for a part time guru/muse/engineer position at the store...
Click to expand...

I thought you were familiar. Didn't you work at MR Systems in Islington?
 
Yeah, It was quite a cool place to work, but after a few months I realised 'work' wasn't for me 🙂 Did i deal with you at any point?
 
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