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It Might Already Be Too Late to Be First in Line at the Apple Store This Week

C

Che Castro

macrumors 603
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May 21, 2009
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It Might Already Be Too Late to Be First in Line at the Apple Store This Week


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A line has already formed formed to buy the iPhone 5 at Apple’s Fifth Avenue store in New York City, reports CNET. That’s nearly a week before the device is to be released — on Sept. 21 at 8 am ET — at Apple retail stores, as well as through carriers and other big-box partners.

Photo via Eric Grant on Twitter/Instagram
But CNET’s Greg Sandoval said that the handful of folks in line just after midnight on Sunday seemed more motivated by publicity than a slimmer phone that can read out sports scores.
Which makes sense, because if they’re willing to put in a week’s worth of camping out on a city sidewalk, they probably could have mustered the effort to preorder in the middle of the night.
Analyst Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray had estimated sales of six million to 10 million iPhone 5s in the first week, and that was back at the beginning of the month, when the device was still just a (substantially leaked) figment of Apple lovers’ imaginations.
Apple is taking an aggressive global rollout schedule for the iPhone 5, and said on Friday that it was “completely blown away” by the volume of overnight preorders. Shipping-time estimates were pushed back just an hour after the iPhone 5 became available online.
The opportunistic start-up TaskRabbit is offering a service where its errand runners will wait in line for four hours for $55 at New York City and San Francisco Bay Area stores on Friday morning.
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http://allthingsd.com/20120916/it-m...eek/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews
 
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As hot as it is right now that is certifiably insane of them :eek::confused:

I couldn't imagine myself EVER doing something like that for a consumer product.
 
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What do these people do for work that affords them the luxury to waste an entire week just to wait for a phone? Any sane, and rational personal would surely preorder.
 
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That's psychotic. It's a phone. I love my iPhone, but there's no way I would camp out to buy it. I would rather wait a week or 2 to get it.
 
ChrisTX said:
What do these people do for work that affords them the luxury to waste and entire week just to wait for a phone? Any sane, and rational personal would surely preorder.
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maybe sick day, vacation, dont have to be at work till later... could be any reason.
 
ChrisTX said:
What do these people do for work that affords them the luxury to waste and entire week just to wait for a phone? Any sane, and rational personal would surely preorder.
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They probably don't have jobs and might be collecting unemployment. I hope you can sleep well tonight knowing your hard earned money is being spent on an iPhone 5 for someone else.
 
aquadisiac said:
maybe sick day, vacation, dont have to be at work till later... could be any reason.
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Don't have to be to work till later? That would mean he still has to work. Probably the other two apply. iPhone4/s, MacBook Pro, iPad, not to mention brand name shoes(puma), and what is more than likely designer eyewear. The gentleman is no bum. He must have taken time off from work, or owns his own business, and could take the designated time off he needed.
 
ChrisTX said:
Don't have to be to work till later? That would mean he still has to work. Probably the other two apply. iPhone4/s, MacBook Pro, iPad, not to mention brand name shoes(puma), and what is more than likely designer eyewear. The gentleman is no bum. He must have taken time off from work, or owns his own business, and could take the designated time off he needed.
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Pumas are not expensive and i have all devices except the ipad and im not balling. point is dont judge a book by it's cover :)

limonade said:
I doubt someone can call five consecutive sick days without having problems at job.
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well im out of excuses for him. or self employed?
 
ChrisTX said:
What do these people do for work that affords them the luxury to waste and entire week just to wait for a phone? Any sane, and rational personal would surely preorder.
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The AllthingsD article says that some startups are charging $55/pop for "waiters." Of course, that works out to about $0.50/hr if they got in line at 5th Avenue already.

That said, the 5th Avenue store must have some type of reality distortion field around it. It was under renovation last holiday season, and the glass box was under particle board. Yet it was always packed with tourists. The nearby Upper West Side store, which wasn't under renovation, was still busy but far less hectic. It makes no sense.

Actually, for me, the best development has been Apple opening a store in Grand Central late last year. It's a quick subway ride there from my office, and while it's busy, it is usually pretty efficient. I got my 2012 MacBook Air there, along with some accessories. Friday will be the first iPhone launch for that store, and it will be interesting to see how they handle the crowds. For security reasons they simply can't have people camping out there for long periods of time, and they also can't really deal with huge lines that would block commuters. The iPad launch went a lot smoother in general since there was so much stock in stores (and because iPads don't require cellular contracts), so it could be interesting.
 
KPOM said:
That said, the 5th Avenue store must have some type of reality distortion field around it. It was under renovation last holiday season, and the glass box was under particle board. Yet it was always packed with tourists. The nearby Upper West Side store, which wasn't under renovation, was still busy but far less hectic. It makes no sense.
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Same with the first starbucks. People go, just to say they've been there, although considering it's in Seattle and close to the geographic center of downtown, there are three other starbucks within a few blocks.
 
alexmish said:
Must be all occupy wall streets folks... it is now occupy apple ;)
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The obvious question is where they get the money to buy the iPhone. The actually "Wall Street" folks have the money, but aren't going to be waiting in line. Some of them were probably actually still at work when the pre-sale went live on Friday, so may have ordered it then.
 
To each their own, but yeah, don't judge by it's cover. These people may be getting money to camp out, or selling the devices way over MSRP to prospective customers for a profit.
 
aquadisiac said:
Pumas are not expensive and i have all devices except the ipad and im not balling. point is dont judge a book by it's cover :)
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Pumas aren't expensive, but they're certainly not cheap shoes either. Point is, he probably has $3k in Apple gear(relatively speaking) so he's not barely getting by either.
 
not that i would ever do it,BUT if someone were to stand in line this far out in advance thats the apple store to do it at. they usually have every media outlet present on an iphone launch and being the first he will most likely be on tv.

if anyone has never been to that apple store in NYC it's the mecca of apple retail
 
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