Apple Stores Creating Fake Lines At Stores

[drtyrell]

I just walked by my Newport Beach CA USA store and noticed this fairly large line along the side of the building. It was high noon the first time I saw it, and around 2 pm on the second pass. This is a large store, and I was having a hard time believing that a line was necessary. I commented to my girlfriend that I bet they're creating this hype outside the store.

Sure enough, as I rounded the corner on my second pass I stepped up to the window and found a store that was virtually empty. The entire right side had something like 6 people watching a demo of what I think was the phone. The left half of the store had more employees than customers. All I could think was "pathetic."

The front of the store was swarmed with "potential" customers who were asking if they could come in to buy non-iPhone items without waiting in line. They were all turned away for the end of the line.

The line was obviously NOT working. They were gating real customers with real money all to try and create the false impression that the entire world wants to be AT&T customers.

 

[greenmymac]

I just walked by my Newport Beach CA USA store and noticed this fairly large line along the side of the building. It was high noon the first time I saw it, and around 2 pm on the second pass. This is a large store, and I was having a hard time believing that a line was necessary. I commented to my girlfriend that I bet they're creating this hype outside the store.

Sure enough, as I rounded the corner on my second pass I stepped up to the window and found a store that was virtually empty. The entire right side had something like 6 people watching a demo of what I think was the phone. The left half of the store had more employees than customers. All I could think was "pathetic."

The front of the store was swarmed with "potential" customers who were asking if they could come in to buy non-iPhone items without waiting in line. They were all turned away for the end of the line.

The line was obviously NOT working. They were gating real customers with real money all to try and create the false impression that the entire world wants to be AT&T customers.

Our mall here was the same way but the apple store was packed

 

[drtyrell]

I have to say, the Newport Beach store is usually a madhouse. It's not uncommon to find it hard to walk around, and its not a small store. The Genius bar lines are 8 hours backlogged. Today was beautifully sunny and cool, and customers wanted in for other products because the Mall itself (Fashion Island) was thriving.

 

[sibruk]

Off topic, but I'm very jealous that your local store is Fashion Island at Newport Beach. I love that place. I have very fond memories of eating at The Cheesecake Factory there and also at the El Torito Grill (which is great if you've never been).

 

[drtyrell]

Off topic, but I'm very jealous that your local store is Fashion Island at Newport Beach. I love that place. I have very fond memories of eating at The Cheesecake Factory there and also at the El Torito Grill (which is great if you've never been).

Oh yes. You speak the truth. PF Chang's is also good.

 

[AppleFan360]

When getting my phone today they were allowing non-iPhone customers to look at other stuff. There was an employee at the door playing traffic cop. It worked well but the store was under staffed so it took me 4 hours to get the phone.

 

[AtariAge]

I visited "The Domain' store yesterday in Austin at about 7:30pm, and the situation was entirely different there. Yes, there was a line of people outside, but they also had quite the queue *inside* the store. I was told the outside line was three hours, and that once you reached the inside line you'd be waiting another two and a half hours. And they were still letting people inside to buy other things (I went in and out several times).

Posted some pictures here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/5788132/

..Al

 

[hierobryan]

Hey, OP.. either you smoke too much weed, or you don't realize the employees can only let a certain amount of people in at a time. It was the same way at the AT&T store when I got my 3G. They only had 10 customers in the store at any one time.

 

[yg17]

I just walked by my Newport Beach CA USA store and noticed this fairly large line along the side of the building. It was high noon the first time I saw it, and around 2 pm on the second pass. This is a large store, and I was having a hard time believing that a line was necessary. I commented to my girlfriend that I bet they're creating this hype outside the store.

Sure enough, as I rounded the corner on my second pass I stepped up to the window and found a store that was virtually empty. The entire right side had something like 6 people watching a demo of what I think was the phone. The left half of the store had more employees than customers. All I could think was "pathetic."

The front of the store was swarmed with "potential" customers who were asking if they could come in to buy non-iPhone items without waiting in line. They were all turned away for the end of the line.

The line was obviously NOT working. They were gating real customers with real money all to try and create the false impression that the entire world wants to be AT&T customers.

That was the exact process at the STL Apple Store yesterday, and I can guarantee you that I, nor anyone else, were hired by Apple to wait in line for 5 hours to create artificial hype.

 

[rfrankl]

I agree that the artificial hype theory is bogus. Everybody in the line at the Palm Beach Gardens mall was there to buy an iPhone, not waste their time to make things look good.

 

[paj]

The front of the store was swarmed with "potential" customers who were asking if they could come in to buy non-iPhone items without waiting in line. They were all turned away for the end of the line.

Same here. It really pissed me off. I needed a replacement charger for my laptop and they said I had to wait in line. Inside, the store wasn't that busy. (at least not as busy as I've seen it on other non-iphone release days).

 

[Bill P.]

To put it kindly, that's a rather silly notion...

I just walked by my Newport Beach CA USA store and noticed this fairly large line along the side of the building. It was high noon the first time I saw it, and around 2 pm on the second pass. This is a large store, and I was having a hard time believing that a line was necessary. I commented to my girlfriend that I bet they're creating this hype outside the store.

Sure enough, as I rounded the corner on my second pass I stepped up to the window and found a store that was virtually empty. The entire right side had something like 6 people watching a demo of what I think was the phone. The left half of the store had more employees than customers. All I could think was "pathetic."

The front of the store was swarmed with "potential" customers who were asking if they could come in to buy non-iPhone items without waiting in line. They were all turned away for the end of the line.

The line was obviously NOT working. They were gating real customers with real money all to try and create the false impression that the entire world wants to be AT&T customers.

 

[aethelbert]

I got an email from a friend last night telling me of a similar situation (she lives near LA, don't know which store). She said that there was a line outside of the store for the 3G iphone and few people inside when she showed up for a genius bar appointment. All of the people inside were doing iPhone stuff, and when she tried to walk in for the appointment, she was directed to the back of the line. She got through the line after two hours and was told that the genius bar wasn't open, even though that on Thursday, one could make a Saturday appointment. Absolutely ridiculous.

 

[Jestered]

I just walked by my Newport Beach CA USA store and noticed this fairly large line along the side of the building. It was high noon the first time I saw it, and around 2 pm on the second pass. This is a large store, and I was having a hard time believing that a line was necessary. I commented to my girlfriend that I bet they're creating this hype outside the store.

Sure enough, as I rounded the corner on my second pass I stepped up to the window and found a store that was virtually empty. The entire right side had something like 6 people watching a demo of what I think was the phone. The left half of the store had more employees than customers. All I could think was "pathetic."

The front of the store was swarmed with "potential" customers who were asking if they could come in to buy non-iPhone items without waiting in line. They were all turned away for the end of the line.

The line was obviously NOT working. They were gating real customers with real money all to try and create the false impression that the entire world wants to be AT&T customers.

If you honestly believe all that garbage you just wrote, you need help. And remember, you just "saw" what you saw. There are plenty of people, myself included, that actually had to deal with what was going on, not just "seeing" it. Geeeesh!

 

[jakeacc]

I'm pretty sure the original Poster wasn't claiming that the people in line were hired to stand there just to draw attention to the Apple Store. I think he was just wondering why all these people had to stand in a line on the sidewalk when they could have just stood in line in the giant air-conditioned Apple store.

I think AT&T and Apple were only taking a handful of people into the store at a time, maybe to prevent a mob inside. (more likely to shoplift or break/bump into products) Because of that, I agree with their decision not to let hundreds of people in their store, but I think they could have managed letting some more people inside without it getting to chaotic.

The lines wrapping around the Apple store was quite a sight. I saw bystanders walking by and taking pics of the line on their cellphones. And half the blogs that have reported about the 3G launch have posted pictures of said lines. Free publicity for the iPhone.

 

[Mr. Giver '94]

Off topic, but I'm very jealous that your local store is Fashion Island at Newport Beach. I love that place. I have very fond memories of eating at The Cheesecake Factory there and also at the El Torito Grill (which is great if you've never been).

That's the best Cheesecake Factory EVER!! I love getting a table on the outdoor deck at night, especially when you can look out onto the water. LOL!

 

[gceo]

Misleading title. They're not really creating fake lines. Just limiting those let in, iPhone or not. Guilty of a bad policy.

 

[extraextra]

I've been to that Apple store, it's my favorite one. It is quite big, so to have unnecessary lines and an empty store seems a bit much.

I went down to the Costa Mesa Apple Store and the line was quite long, definitely over 100 people. Many said that they had been waiting for over 4 hours, and at 4pm Apple cut off the line at the end, saying no more customers would be allowed to enter the line to wait. They did say that they had enough iPhones for those already in line, and that they would get to every customer. There was Starbucks coffee being handed out, and there was also a separate line (maybe 10 people long) for people who needed to get into the Apple store for other reasons.

The store itself looked quite busy. I've seen it more packed on a weekend, but it wasn't as empty as your store sounds.

 

[Surely]

Off topic, but I'm very jealous that your local store is Fashion Island at Newport Beach. I love that place. I have very fond memories of eating at The Cheesecake Factory there and also at the El Torito Grill (which is great if you've never been).

Oh yes. You speak the truth. PF Chang's is also good.

Yeah, it's a shame that there are no other Cheesecake Factories, El Torito Grills, or PF Changs anywhere else in this country. That is one unique mall....

Look at this line! This photo was taken with my still useful 1st gen iPhone at the Westfield Century City Mall at 3 pm on Saturday. How fake can you get!!! Look at that last guy in line...... he's up to something.....

 

[drtyrell]

That was the exact process at the STL Apple Store yesterday, and I can guarantee you that I, nor anyone else, were hired by Apple to wait in line for 5 hours to create artificial hype.

Well, I hope you didn't think I was suggesting that they were Hollywood stand ins. I was merely pointing out that the store capacity was around 10% of what the fire martial will allow.

 

[drtyrell]

Misleading title. They're not really creating fake lines. Just limiting those let in, iPhone or not. Guilty of a bad policy.

You may be right, but in my book, limiting people to a ridiculous few is creating a fake line. Last year the iPhone sold out without those same lines. I got there around 11:30 pm, and they were empty and out of phones.

It could be a move for security, but I doubt it based on the tumble weeds rolling around the store. I also didn't seen anyone at the Genius bar today.

 

[AboveTheChaos]

Same here. It really pissed me off. I needed a replacement charger for my laptop and they said I had to wait in line. Inside, the store wasn't that busy. (at least not as busy as I've seen it on other non-iphone release days).

I wanted to try to get in to just get a case and got turned away, but the guy behind me wanted to try and get his Macbook Air fixed. I'd have REALLY been pissed if I had a broken computer and they told me to come back in a couple of days because they were too busy selling iPhones!

 

[yg17]

Well, I hope you didn't think I was suggesting that they were Hollywood stand ins. I was merely pointing out that the store capacity was around 10% of what the fire martial will allow.

ok I understand now. I think for security reasons they didn't want the stores packed with people, hence the lines.

 

[rstone3]

Lines Outside Stores

Here in Columbus, Ohio there was the same deal outside BUT anyone who approached the 'bouncer' was let in the store for non-iPhone stuff (which is what I did since I decided to not wait the 1 and 1/2 hours in line - from other posts 1.5 hours wouldn't have been too bad, however!) Now I'm out of luck since they are out of everything for a day or two. Our store is not very large and I think if the line was inside other customers wouldn't be able to shop.

 

[ziggo]

fake hype?

Trying telling that two the virtual sea of people in line at the apple store at perimeter mall today...