Who queues for an iPhone 5? Protesters, hipsters and the jobless
The iPhone 5 doesn't go on sale until 8am on Friday, 21 September - yet lines of fanbois, socio-averse hipsters, campaigners and self-promoting twits awaiting the new mobe are already clogging the pavements outside Apple Stores. Yesterday on the steps of London's flagship Regent Street pomaceous-product outlet, punters queueing …
This topic is closed for new posts.
Re: Business plan
There would be a market for high-rez YouTube vids of people racing each other for strategically placed, distant, porta-potties, some of which has a malfunctioning coin acceptance mechanism for added grief.
Re: Business plan
They are in a queue for a tech gadget - free is equivalent to not worth having and unaffordable is equivalent to the best thing ever...
Did you read the list of who was there? Lots of people who might have more sense than money.
The unemployed guy is not going to shell out for a cuppa but would probably want to avoid soiling himself.
Re: I love gadget queues!
Nice one - and give them music as well. Preferably symbols at roughly 1am every morning. Or even better, Symbols playing through a Galaxy S3.
Re: I love gadget queues!
Have a symbol of a cymbal:
http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/169/169,1210802663,6/stock-vector-cymbal-12601177.jpg
Re: I love gadget queues!
I was more thinking of fully-auto paintballing :P
Re: I love gadget queues!
>I sell them teas and coffees and then charge them 5 quid to use the portaloo when the laxatives take effect.
That might backfire:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3mCTyZK59Y
"People don't queue like this for Samsung or Sony"
Good thing too, because that's absolutely stupid, pissing away your time waiting in line to buy a gadget. I can almost understand waiting in line for games, maybe some totally spectacular device, but this is an incremental upgrade to the 4S in many ways.
So maybe what they're saying is, that people who use other types of devices have better things to do with their time than wait around in the street?
Re: "People don't queue like this for Samsung or Sony"
Oddly they mostly only queue at the Apple stores. The local RadioShack, AT&T and Verizon shops will all also be selling them but there aren't queues at those places. Clearly it isn't about "being first" but more like an odd act of narcissism in the hope that they can bask in the glow of Appleshine. Are there going to be queues at the malls? Maybe some but mostly I don't think so.
Props to Zohaib Ali on becoming a regular on El Reg and while I'm happy for him that he enjoys the experience, I don't understand it and have to chalk it up to having more dollars than sense.
Re: "People don't queue like this for Samsung or Sony"
I can tell you this, there are no volunteers to queue like that anymore just for a phone handset in the ex-Warsaw Pact countries :P
Attention whores
And so we now know that most of the queruers aren't waiting in line three days in advance out of enthusiasm for the product, but for publicity. After the tenth queruer, The enthusiasts appear, and they aren't nearly as interested in getting media attention. Sad lot, really. I tend to go in on the afternoon of launch day, like last year for the iPhone 4S, and there was no line outside my local Apple store then.
Good luck to them but I wouldn't do it. I've been an early adopter at one point - bought a top of the range DVD player in 96 when they came out and it's still going strong today (when Sony made good stuff) - but certainly wouldn't do it with phones where there have been early days problems in the past. I've seen one preview report that states the screen has a slight yellow tinge in the whites - is that a result of the contrast and vividness tweaks on the screen or is it an issue? I think I'll wait and see.
Power Source?
Being technology nuts what do these guys do for power? Does somebody from the Apple Store run out an extension cable for them or do they simply have to switch off their igadgets?
Re: Power Source?
I once queued overnight for a Hifi shop sale, together with two friends. The shop was fine with us running an extension cord under the door at closing time, so that we could use our coffee machine. The fact that the water canister we had taken with us had frozen was a little showstopper there, but a friendly neighbour helped us out.
Re: Power Source?
You'd think a few days away from a power supply would make them realise the benefits of being able to swap in a spare battery.
Re: Power Source?
The Apple Store provides a free bag of Unicorn Farts.
The Thick of It is back on TV... when the chai-drinking new-media Tory spin doctor Stewart receives bad news about his standing with the PM, he looks shaken and walks out. One of the other characters remarks:
"I've never seen him lost for poly-syllables before. He took a morning off when when Steve Jobs died, but otherwise it's been seven years of ear-piss"
Re: Ear-piss
ear-piss -> describes the iphone perfectly.
I presume my fkng taxes are paying for the overtime claim from the 'carer'?
I'm not entirely sure autism is that kid's only issue.
open a bakery for retraining vulnerable women.
Because once they know how to bake they're less likely to get?
Don't need to know how to bake
to make a goddamn sammich. (Yes, I know I'm going to be flamed extra crispy.)
Re: open a bakery for retraining vulnerable women.
No-one has made a "bun in the oven" joke yet...
The reality is the vast majority of the 1st day sales will be shipped by courier - yes I went with a friend and queued for my first iPhone all those years ago (it's still working BTW) but ever since just pre-order online and has arrived on the morning of release anyway. You do it once and it's an experience to meet a load of (friendly) strangers but these days the UPS man just turns up with a small brown box.
If I ran a gadget shop
I wouldn't want the great unwashed stinking up the place. (staff not included)
Re: If I ran a gadget shop
Except you would if it gave you great publicity and you sold more as a result....?
Whichever way you cut it - they are selling even more bucketloads than before and any retailer in their right mind would be very, very happy to be in this position where people will queue up to buy (without it having to be a sale).
Re: If I ran a gadget shop
Really? if I ran a gadget shop, I'd make sure I had enough stock to meet the demand, and allow people to pre-order so that the iDiots don't have to queue outside, discouraging the sane customers from coming in.
Re: If I ran a gadget shop
discouraging the sane customers from coming in.
Are you suggesting any Apple shop anywhere gets sane customers?
Re: If I ran a gadget shop
They don't.
really.. any sane person that really, really wants [x] orders it online, and waits.
Ohter than that half the people waiting in queue for an iFruit shop are doing so on behalf of someone else for [pittance].
Another reason why you shouldnt. Or want to be seen there. or.... [facepalm]
Re: If I ran a gadget shop
If I ran a gadget shop I would have a taser under the counter and when couples come in i would shock the man and hit him with cricket bat. then take the woman.
Re: If I ran a gadget shop
They "never" take a woman :P
First post-purchase action for these muppets.
"Siri. Where can I get a life?"
Re: First post-purchase action for these muppets.
Siri - why are all these Samsung owners looking 'green'?
Re: First post-purchase action for these muppets.
Well if a post a few places above is correct, it may be down to issues with your new retina display
Re: First post-purchase action for these muppets.
"Siri - why are all these Samsung owners looking 'green'?"
It's certainly not from standing in the cold all night. Maybe something to do with the glow from that massive screen it has?
Re: First post-purchase action for these muppets.
Siri - why are all these Samsung owners looking 'green'?
Maybe because you forgot to put on your rose-tinted glasses today?
Used to queue for hours
to get into a music festival. Gates opened at 6pm, but sure as hell each year we were there at 8am. The music didnt even start for another 2 days but the queueing to be one of the first a half-flooded campsite was all part of the experience. We had an excellent time with 8 of us crammed into a 2 man tent pitched on the pavement at the front of the queue passing round the bottle of JD.
Sometimes queueing is all part of the overall experience.
Re: Used to queue for hours
Drinking booze while waiting with friends for a festival isn't really comparable to clogging up a public pavement with a bunch of strangers waiting to buy an iPhone.
Re: Used to queue for hours
Was going to say the same thing. If you don't queue at the concert, you don't get a good spot, close to the stage - there's a rational reason to queue. Come to think of it, if you didn't queue for the tickets in the first place, you wouldn't even have seen the concert at all.
... And it's not as if that concert was going to be re-staged during your lunchbreak in every small phone shop in the country for the next 12 months.
Someone go buy some of that tinned rotting fish and smear it on them on something.
I was thinking yesterday about those continental cities where they hose down the street late at night, Regent Street looking a bit dusty!
Re: tinned rotting fish
I imagine that by Friday it might help them smell a bit better right enough.
Lattes
Sinking your shot of caffeine in two mugs of hot milk defeats the point. And they taste vile.
Mine's the black coffee, one brown sugar. Cold milk optional.
Re: Lattes
> Sinking your shot of caffeine in two mugs of hot milk
I disagree with your point, but am upvoting because I'm going to start using that bit there as a euphemism with immediate effect. Thank you.
Re: Lattes
Umm... surely that should be
two "jugs" of hot milk.
Paris because her jugs look like the milk in her's is always piping hot!
Re: Lattes
I am never going to look at a latte in the same light again thanks for that thought - and if anyone asks me for cream I fear I may just wet myself.
Looks like we've found the inmates...
for the next season (God help this country) of Big Brother, not to mention the opportunity for a sponsorship deal leveraging brand synergies...
Re: Looks like we've found the inmates...
Sartre already did a play called "Huis clos" about three people trapped in a small room in Hell. Just add the mobile phones of choice: one iPhone 5, one iPhone 4s, and one Galaxy S3.
Eventually, the audience would claw its own eyes out.
Anyone remember...
..the saddos who queued in central London for a PS3 when they were launched?
How we laughed. Especially with the police warnings about what would happen with loads of people going home after midnight with £400 game consoles under their arm. (Or heading for HMV with £400 cash possibly on them).
Except Sony gave them their PS3s for free. (1st 100 or something). And a taxi home. And a (then) £2,500 42" plasma TV to play it on.
A lot of these people seem to have valid (for them) reasons for queueing, even if it's just for the laugh or experience. I doubt many of them will regret having done it.
Re: Anyone remember...
This is Apple remember.
They may be given a free plasitic bag to take their ithingy home, but I wouldn't count on it.
This topic is closed for new posts.
