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New Retina iPad Mini In-Store Availability Tracker Gaining Attention

mcoyne said:
Like many others have probably done, this started out as a project to help me get the iPhone 5S that I wanted. And it worked. Turning it in to a web app and adding iPad Airs and then Minis was pretty simple.

If people find it helpful they will use it, if they don't then they won't. It's as simple as that.

My day job is running a small sea turtle NGO, and certainly I hoped that this might bring more attention to our site and to sea turtles. Almost everything action I take has this goal. I am a sea turtle evangelist. The reality is that only a fraction of a percent of the people visiting the iDevice pages will stick around to visit our turtle pages, but every little bit helps.
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I for one thank you. It's extremely useful. Thank you so much
 
Just ordered my 16g TMO Mini from rockingham NH..... With a beige case... Picking up after work:)))gotta love personal pickup... So nice to leisurely walk in after work rather than behave like animals
 
bbeagle said:
Copyright law.

http://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/terms/site.html

Apple specifically states that you can't take anything off their site without permission. If you choose to ignore this, Apple can sue you for copyright infringement.
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I'm surprised things like this are enforceable. By simply using the Apple website I've consented to Apple's licensing terms that I've never read?

By reading this reply, reader consents to send Actionable Mango 2 packages of Mint Newman O's.

I could possibly see the inventory tracker as being illegal under "theft of service" provisions of the law.
 
ZOZO said:
I guarantee you've never seriously watched fox news if this is what you think. It is on the other hand what the liberal elite would like you to think, so good job on being a sheep. :)
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If by sheep you mean person capable of critical thinking, then yes. Also funny to me how people try to spin the word "liberal" to have a negative connotation when it's actually an inherently positive word. And if you think Fox News doesn't try to shove their conservative agenda down america's throats, you're delusional.
 
mcoyne said:
Like many others have probably done, this started out as a project to help me get the iPhone 5S that I wanted. And it worked. Turning it in to a web app and adding iPad Airs and then Minis was pretty simple.

If people find it helpful they will use it, if they don't then they won't. It's as simple as that.

My day job is running a small sea turtle NGO, and certainly I hoped that this might bring more attention to our site and to sea turtles. Almost everything action I take has this goal. I am a sea turtle evangelist. The reality is that only a fraction of a percent of the people visiting the iDevice pages will stick around to visit our turtle pages, but every little bit helps.
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Really great job. Wish I was a coder then I'd try something myself, lol!

Any chance you could modify it to make it more usable in the UK (and perhaps elsewhere)?

Outside the US and Can, the rest of the world have to deal with Apple's /retail site, in order to check availability, and then pick-up and pay directly in store:

https://ireserve.apple.com/GB/en_GB/reserve/iPad/productReservation
(gotten to from the first tab on this page: http://www.apple.com/uk/retail )

We have to check stock whenever it may come in completely randomly throughout the day from 6am daily. It's a hell of a lot more annoying to use than the US/Can pay and pickup service, for sure!

[NB: the 128GB one in my signature ↓below↓ is "on order"...to be received sometime in the next 3 weeks!]
 
Delivery status

Any first day orderers who's order has left China? I ordered 2hrs after they went on sale and it's sitting at Chek Lap Kok, Hong Kong. Actually went from Shenzhen, China to Chek Lap Kok, Hong Kong back to Shenzhen, China then back to Chek Lap Kok, Hong Kong. UPS is the shipper. (shipping to da UP [Michigan])
 
roland.g said:
Publicity stunt. Just trying to get their name into the public consciousness.
This isn't about helping people find stock.
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It's only these capitalist-minded cynics who project it onto others... it's pretty clear that in his original posts announcing the tracker that the dude is just a geek (who likes sea turtles) who is passionate about Apple products and is cool enough to use his programming knowledge to make a useful tool and share it with everyone else. Not everyone lives their life motivated by money.
 
avanpelt said:
If Apple actually made their site present information at a glance instead of requiring so many clicks to get information (color, Wi-Fi/Cellular, carrier, capacity, store name), sites like this wouldn't need to exist.

If I'm on the fence about color, capacity, or Wi-Fi vs. Cellular and want to buy an iPad from an Apple Store today, I have to click dozens of times to find out which stores have which capacity, color, and Wi-Fi/cellular models I'm considering.
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Yeah, it's like they didn't use databases which have the advantage of returning results for a user-configurable query that can be a little broader than essentially calling ONE value. You know, better than querying ONE cell in a spreadsheet file.
And even spreadsheets can return multiple cell values... What's the hold up, Apple?

"Oh, this new iPad Air sure looks tempting! I'd get either color, I don't care that much and the capacity... well... 32GB is good, might go for 64GB if that's available sooner... Let's see..."
an annoying amount of time later
"Oh screw that, apparently they don't want my money"

Hmm... And they say they want to push incentives to buy from Apple instead of other places like carriers and the Best Buy's, Amazons and what have you?
They don't seem very eager now do they?

Glassed Silver:mac
 
These are popping up like flies.

All of a sudden they ate start coming out after the iPad mini...

We've got him.
 
Looks like supply issues were grossly exaggerated, or demand was grossly over estimated.
 
bbeagle said:
Web scraping Apple's private information and putting it in a different format is ILLEGAL. It's as simple as that.

Apple OWNS the information about how many iPads are available in each store. It chooses to give out this information when a person uses their website, but does not allow someone to COPY this information and put it on a different website.

Scrape Fox News's website for their latest news stories and put it on your own private web site, and see how far this gets you.
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Ah, my mistake, I thought businesses wanted to make it easy for customers to buy products.
 
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