Sloop flatters me with his story of my tech geekiness. Like him, I have waited for over a year to get my hands on the marvelous (if not entirely unproblematic) device known throughout the universe as iPhone (now, 3G). And I'm very excited for Sloop to be able to get one, and hope that his wait goes smoothly. For my part, I'm restraining myself by not texting him daily about how I'm texting him daily on my iPhone 3G. He has no ideas how hard that is for me not to do.
Anyway, instead of responding to Sloop's eloquent post, I thought I should provide an alternative version of events; not to dispute Sloop, but to provide additional perspective. My iPhone saga goes a bit differently than his, and although I consider it to have a happier ending -- in as much as I left the store with an iPhone in my possession -- it certainly came through much more frustration than his blissfully patient meditation. I provide this account solely for the historical record.
Two of my dear friends here, Erik and Lindsay, who are also married to each other, are tech geeks like me and were equally rabid, um, eager to get an iPhone. We'd all waited patiently, diligently, had saved our nickels and dimes, and felt that, on Friday the 11th, we were finally due to receive the reward for all of this sacrifice. Two of us had obligations in the middle of the day, so we decided to wait until about 2pm to head over to Apple store. That was the plan on Thursday afternoon. By Thursday evening, my usual "kid on Christmas eve" mentality took over, and I called Erik and Lindsay and said, "You know, I don't have to be at work until 10am, and the store opens at 8am...." That's all it took (I love my friends). The next morning, I drove us all to the Apple store at 7:30am. We were about 70th in line.
If you've never been to an Apple store event, it really is something to behold. Like Sloop said, they do know how to do the geek thing right (when they choose to do so). This was my third Apple event (the first was that store's opening, which also coincided with the debut of the original iPhone, and the second was the release of Leopard. I ended up buying neither on those particular days, but liked the free tshirts). But those events usually took place in the evening -- they close the store in the afternoon, and then re-open with fanfare. This was an 8am event. Had I not been sleep deprived and giddy with excitement, I likely would have recognized this as the first omen.
Anyway, they opened the doors and said they would let 10 people in at a time, and that it shouldn't take longer than 10 or 15 minutes to process your order, assuming you were a US Citizen, were the primary account holder for your phone, and blah blah blah. Unlike Sloop's line, ours only had a few people who were caught by surprise. I was amongst my fellow geeks. For my part, I had printed out a checklist of what I would need, account numbers, options I wanted to buy with the iPhone, and had that with me. I never get caught off guard on stuff like this. I was feeling good about how this was going.
We moved along at a fair clip, and by about 8:30, I thought I had beaten the odds and was going to be able to get in to work on time with my snazzy new iPhone. That's when fate started to push back. The line came to a halt. Later that day, I would get online and read about how all the activation servers across planet Earth had reacted poorly to the fact that everyone and their dog wanted an iPhone. As I stood in line, however, all the Apple employees told us was that "there is a glitch," and that they would get things moving again soon. They did not walk up and down helping us get the pre-approval stuff (but, again, my geeky brethren probably had that taken care of, as well). 8:30 soon became 9, and soon became 9:30, and we had not moved. Two hours wasted. I turned to my friends Erik and Lindsay, and we all knew we were going to have to step out of line and go to work. We agreed that we would see if we all were free at around 2pm, like originally planned, and maybe come back.
I finished with work a little early, so I went online and encountered the horror stories about every other Apple store in the world experiencing the same issues. It was amazing reading, if more than a little nauseating. I couldn't cope with the idea that I wouldn't get an iPhone that day. I called the Apple stores in my area, but called the one I leave near about five times, asking if they still had phones. "Yes," a still-peppy clerk said. "Is there still a bit of a line?" I asked. "Define 'a bit'", she said. I felt that sickness creep up my throat again. "Less than a hundred people," I whimpered. "Um...," she hesitated. "That's probably about right." I quickly hung up and called Erik. Lindsay was just returning from her appointment, so we decided we would make a mad dash again back to the Apple store, and go for round two.
We got back to the Apple store at about 2:30. Another omen: Our place in line upon our return was almost the identical spot we were forced to abandon earlier in the morning. Someone was having a laugh. Let them; all I wanted was an iPhone. The line was moving, but at an absolute crawl. Starbucks was handing out these crazy iced coffee sugar shot things that were just way too intense. This was not a good thing. Luckily, the Apple people were going up and down the line handing out free bottled water (I had brought my own, because I'm a prepared geek). The three of us dug in and, without even having to say it, knew that we weren't leaving that line until we got what we wanted.
Here I have to insert a brief aside on friendship. Standing in that line was not, in and of itself, fun. The weather was very pleasant, but standing for hours and hours outdoors on concrete, moving very slowly, is not how I would typically choose to spend a day. But I had an absolute blast because it was great quality time with my friends Erik and Lindsay. There's talking with friends, and even going out to dinner or catching a movie, and then there's that weird kind of camaraderie that comes about through unpleasant circumstance. Friendships not borne of convenience, but of inconvenience. When you can spend almost a full day standing in line outside on concrete with two people and feel like it was almost a holiday, then you know you've found some true friends. We spent most of those hours laughing, joking, and just enjoying each others' company. Very fond memories. I'm really grateful they were in line with me.
Anyway, it was 6pm by the time we got to the front of the Apple store, which meant we now were about 12th in line. At that moment -- I kid you not -- an Apple store employee came out and announced that they were starting to run out of the black 16gig phones. I feared for his safety, for my safety, and even for the concrete's safety. We were 12th in line, but there were probably a hundred more behind us. The news traveled fast and the reply was bad tempers.
For my part, I didn't care about the color -- I just wanted an iPhone with the max amount of memory. But the color mattered to Erik and Lindsay, and they looked crushed. The full weight of those hours in line was on them now. By the time we got inside, the store had officially run out of that model of iPhone. Luckily for me, they still had the 16gig in white, which I ended up getting. But I couldn't really feel happy about it anymore.
When I got to the front of the line, they gave me an extra little sales talk (as if my purpose for enduring all of this somehow needed refocusing). Then, I was passed off to two salespeople who walked me through the order and activation. It took about 20 minutes (the activation servers, obviously, were back up and running at this point). My excitement returned, but I tried not to show it because I knew Erik and Lindsay were devastated, frustrated, and fatigued.
It was close to 8pm when we walked out of the Apple store -- me, with a shiny new device; they, with nothing shiny and new. We had planned to go out to dinner afterwards, but they decided maybe it would be best if I just dropped them off at their house. I understood completely. If they had run out of the phone I wanted, I would have lost my appetite, too. In fact, I probably would have lost my lunch on the glassy doors of the Apple store, just to express my frustration. (I regurgitate a lot, but rarely with any sort of symbolic purpose behind it. This would have been big for me.)
The next morning, I spoke with Lindsay. Erik had gotten up early again and gone back to the same Apple store and waited in line for a bit before being told there were no more iPhones there -- none, zip. He drove over to the other big Apple store in town (cross town, actually), and was waiting in line there. At about 1pm on Saturday, I got an email from Erik that said simply: "Got em." I felt real happiness for them. I know it's just a phone, but if you had been with us in line for all those hours the night before, and then knew that Erik was alone this time in line again the next day, I think you would have felt joy for them, too. It was about so much more than just the phones.
That's where my story ends, and Sloop does a great and flattering job of blending me into his narrative. From my point of view, I think Apple really botched things that Friday, and there's still some people that are very hot about it, and rightly so. Apple builds its reputation on having their stuff work. Nothing worked that Friday. I'm glad, though, that by the time Sloop went to get a phone, there was at least some advances in customer service.
What I also find interesting is the perspective I gained. My frustration about how Friday went down has been curbed of late with these reports about people still in lines (even today), and still not able to get iPhones. I now feel much less frustrated and much more fortunate. Yeah, it took a long time, and moreso for Erik and Lindsay, but we all now have the iPhones we wanted. I've come to understand that we are lucky. I was in the Apple store yesterday ("to thine own self be true"), and overheard a disappointed customer being told by an employee that they were still out of iPhones, that they didn't know when they would get more, but it should be "soon." That weird urge to join a conversation with one's own story almost overtook me. I wanted to butt in and tell them about how long I had to wait in line. I don't know why I wanted to say that to them, but it fe
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