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Thursday Stock/Line Report

Called the Broomfield Colorado Flatirons Crossing Apple store at 12:30pm looking for an 8gb for my wife. The poor sap who answered the phone announced that they had just received a shipment which included the 8gb and that if my wife "came to the store right away" she would get one.

My wife works 5 minutes away from the store so I quickly called her and told her to get over there right away. She was eating lunch and dropped everything and raced over to the store. When she got there she said there was already a line and although she ultimately got an 8gb phone she had to wait a total of 1 1/2 hours until she walked out. The employee did not mention anything about a line when I talked to him so I am assuming it all happened on the fly.

Moral of the story: call your local Apple store multiple times a day and be ready to hop over there quickly when they tell you they have one in stock. I have been checking the online inventory page nightly and this particular store has never indicated that they had any 8gb's in stock.
 
Around 2:30 PM today, someone posted that there were phones in Crossgates Mall, Albany. That post has since disappeared.

But, thank you, anonymous person, 'cause I got there 30 minutes later. Called AT&T on the way and took the FAN off my account.

The store had set up a queue on the left side for iPhone and the rest of the store was business as usual.

There were 4 people in front of me. It took 5 minutes to get to the front of the line. 3 Apple employees were activating. One guy in a business suit must have had an argument with AT&T on his old phone, but he prevailed and got his iPhone. They made the girl who wanted to pay with cash step out of line to get a gift card, but she was able to go right back to the front of the line.

There were at least 30 phones, I guess, about 2 hours after the first guy posted on MacRumors. 8 and 16 gig, choice of black or white. No problem. When I left, there were 5-6 people in line.

They looked at my ID, asked for some info, took the phone to the computers set up for activating and I had my working iPhone in 5 minutes.

They had a decent selection of cases and accessories so I bought one, paid at the regular counter and was out of there in 15 minutes.

So thanks to the guy who posted the comment and BIG thanks to the Apple Store employees in Albany.

I just wish AT&T had better coverage in my neighborhood. I used to get 3 bars with my old Sony Ericson 580, but this iPhone gets one bar or No Service. Oh well, let's see what happens. I could always sell my house and move, right? Let's get our priorities straight.
 
sharksandwich said:
i may be wrong, but i'm pretty sure the tysons stock indicator changed last night after it was initially posted - wonder if they're doing TRUE close-of-business stock updates now, given how testy customers are getting when morning stock doesn't match previous night's availability?

also, i'm increasingly beginning to think it's going to be a good two weeks before we start seeing walk-in/walk-out purchases here in the dc metro area.
Click to expand...

I sure hope so. I live in Baltimore and have 10 Apple stores with in about and hours drive and all are out.

i went to the Columbia, MD store today at 3:45 when they said they had them in stock. There were 5 people in line in front of we. We kept asking what they had in stock and they would never answer us. I finally got my turn and asked for a 16GB and they said all they had were 8GB. They finally said they ran out of 16GB a couple of hours ago. I wish they would simply post what they have in stock so people don't wait in line for nothing.

OK, I'm done ranting.
 
suMMx said:
why is apple randomly closing the line? are they trying to put on the perception that this launch doesn't suck? because it does and they should have a better system
Click to expand...

They are not doing it randomly. They close the line when the # of people online exceeds the # of phones in the store...

Would it be better if they let the line grow and grow, and tick off a lot people who waited?

You can't sell what you don't have.

:apple::apple:
 
SF Downtown

San Francisco Downtown had ~15 people in line @ 3:45; 16GB white only. Got in and out in under an hour.
 
Towson, MD waited in line for 4 hours and finally got one.

line was getting too long, so they cut the line and closed to store to other customers. ONLY IPHONE CUSTOMERS (already in line) LOL...

Customer : I want to buy a Macbook...
Apple Guy : No you can't, only iphone customers
customer : You mean to tell me that I can't buy a computer
Apple Guy : Nope, come back tomorrow

activation took about 2 mins. (already iphone customer), I was like "dude, hurry up, I am hungry, tired, want to get the hell out of here..."
He was like " will do, will do" haha...

now the problem is, 3G speed is almost like EDGE... so what's the fkin point? I waited 4 hours for nothing, if you ask me...

oh well...
 
mdgolom said:
I sure hope so. I live in Baltimore and have 10 Apple stores with in about and hours drive and all are out.

i went to the Columbia, MD store today at 3:45 when they said they had them in stock. There were 5 people in line in front of we. We kept asking what they had in stock and they would never answer us. I finally got my turn and asked for a 16GB and they said all they had were 8GB. They finally said they ran out of 16GB a couple of hours ago. I wish they would simply post what they have in stock so people don't wait in line for nothing.

OK, I'm done ranting.
Click to expand...

according to the inventory checker, towson has all 3 models in stock...fyi, columbia had 0 white iphones in their shipment today.

cenetti said:
Towson, MD waited in line for 4 hours and finally got one.

line was getting too long, so they cut the line and closed to store to other customers. ONLY IPHONE CUSTOMERS (already in line) LOL...

Customer : I want to buy a Macbook...
Apple Guy : No you can't, only iphone customers
customer : You mean to tell me that I can't buy a computer
Apple Guy : Nope, come back tomorrow

activation took about 2 mins. (already iphone customer), I was like "dude, hurry up, I am hungry, tired, want to get the hell out of here..."
He was like " will do, will do" haha...

now the problem is, 3G speed is almost like EDGE... so what's the fkin point? I waited 4 hours for nothing, if you ask me...

oh well...
Click to expand...

i bought 2 phones in MD today...so far im not so impressed with 3G speeds, but 2.0 is pretty sweet.
 
martinmartin said:
i bought 2 phones in MD today...so far im not so impressed with 3G speeds, but 2.0 is pretty sweet.
Click to expand...

tell me about it... 3G is dead in towson...

Could you please install AOL radio (if you haven't already) and tell me if you can play all the radio stations on 3G?

It suppose to play on 3G and wifi.... 3G is Not working for me. Is it because the speed sucks in MD or is there anything else I should be doing?
 
cenetti said:
tell me about it... 3G is dead in towson...

Could you please install AOL radio (if you haven't already) and tell me if you can play all the radio stations on 3G?

It suppose to play on 3G and wifi.... 3G is Not working for me. Is it because the speed sucks in MD or is there anything else I should be doing?
Click to expand...

ill check this out tomorrow - turns out i dont get 3g service in my house, which is a letdown bc the att maps have my address covered with 3g...
 
They need more shipments to the Midwest, all out pretty much in the only 3 Apple stores in all of Wisconsin for Friday. Maybe more by next week.
 
djarum69 said:
Drove by Bethesda Row at 10:30 and saw a line. Of course, I couldn't resist standing in the line too. I was about #16 with some 8GBs and a load of 16BGs in black available. Call it 2.5 hours later I had the one I wanted. I had no problems, but there were a lot of people having AT&T issues.

The whole process just seems destined to suck. I expect better.
Click to expand...

BTW stopped by at 7:45pm. Zero stock.
 
CONFIRMED: tysons is changing the online stock availability in the mornings, possibly reflecting TRUE close-of-business stock.

last night (~9:45pm) showed both 16g white and 16g black available, whereas this morning (7:30am) shows only 16gb black available.

has anyone else noticed this happening in their area's apple stores?

probably a good sign; they must have realized that potential customers are getting really angry waiting in line when there's no stock ;)
 
Yesterday after work at about 4:45 I ran to Palisades in West Nyack NY and they supposedly had plenty of every model in stock. I was about #20 in line when I got there and the line was still growing and they were still giving out tickets for whatever model you wanted. It was about an hour and a half wait. I ended up calling the Tices Corner Store in Woodcliff Lake NJ while I was on line to see what their stock was like. They had a "limited supply" of white 16 and supposedly no line. That was the phone I wanted so I took a gamble and got over there as fast a possible. No line and was in and out with my white 16 in about 20-25 minutes. They actually had some 8's in stock as well but the guy didn't tell me that on the phone. While I was walking out the line was capped for the whites at 5 people because I guess by that time their stock was diminished.

Also, I was concerned that I might have an issue because I was reading earlier in the day that not only do you need to remove you discount from your account but you also need to remove your "business indicator" flags. That was not the case for me. I previously had a university discount on my account that was not even showing yet because I put it on about 2 weeks ago. I canceled that on Sunday and ran into no issues today. Good luck to you guys still searching out there. Yesterday was a sign that things seem to be simmering down....at least in the northern tri-state area. Excluding NYC of course.
 
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