For starters , I was n’t dressed right . Last Friday was a relatively decent springtime Clarence Shepard Day Jr. in the San Francisco Bay Area , and I went to theApple Store in Emeryvilledirectly from a encounter , so my only outwear was a wool blazer . But when I produce down to Emeryville , a chilly wind was gusting downBay Street ; as the sunshine fell , it only grew chillier . The jacket was n’t intimately enough .
For another thing , I was recent . My merging had choke until 3:00 p.m. , so I did n’t get to the Bay Street shopping center until 30 minute later or so . By then , the bank line was two pulley long . I walked past Victoria ’s Secret , Gymboree , Sunglass World , Abercrombie & Fitch , and others before I reached the end of the lineage next to Arts Africains . The line continue to grow behind me , until it reached the end of the block and went around the corner .
Those are two of the reasons I was thrill and sniffling in the assemblage dusk at 6:30 p.m. when the cat from the Apple Store finally say us we should probably go home . By then , I ’d had plenty of prison term to wonder what the heck we were all doing there .
The crowd queues up in New York for the opportunity to buy an iPad 2 on launch day—a scene that repeated itself at Apple Stores across the U.S.
The crowd line up up in New York for the opportunity to buy an iPad 2 on launch day — a view that repeated itself at Apple Stores across the U.S.
really , I knew whyIwas there : I ’d been assigned to pick up a couple of iPad 2s for the office . ( My shopping list : A white 32 GB ATT model , a ignominious WiFi with any capacity , and a blue Smart Cover . ) It was my fellow bank line - stander I could n’t figure out .
It ’s not like the iPad 2 is a mission - critical gimmick for which anyone in line had a rightfully pressing want . I was standing next to a buoyant , up-and-coming ’ tween who was there with her parent and a friend and spent most of her line - time dashing in and out of nearby shop to get warm . A passer-by asked why we were waiting in line and what we were hold back for . “ It ’s the awful toy ever , ” she replied .
The iPad 2 is n’t even a truly raw machine . As Jason Snell put it in his iPad 2 review , this version is an evolutionary product , not a revolutionary one .
And it ’s not like there were n’t other fashion to get the thing . You could of course of instruction , order online and get it in two or three weeks . Or you could go to one of the retail outlets — Best Buy , Walmart , Target — that had iPads for cut-rate sale ( though they may have had a more limited selection ) . At one point on Friday , somebody drive down the street wave an opened iPad box , shouting , “ They ’ve get plenty at Walmart . ”
But when I asked my line - neighbor why they were there , some take care at me like I was insane for even asking . Most of the others gave me a variation on , “ I just have to have it . ”
count , I ’m around Apple stuff all the time and , yes , I bonk a flock of it . But I would n’t remain firm in line for three 60 minutes for any of it if I did n’t have to . I unremarkably attempt to contend against the stereotype of Apple lover , the one who ’ll buyanythingwith that logotype on it ; I attempt to maintain that most of us are really sensible consumers who ’ve made the noetic decision that Apple ’s products are good than the competition ’s . But stand up in that line does n’t seem too rational .
The Apple Store stave at this particular localization did not make the wait any easier . They did a lousy chore of calibrating expectation . When I ’d first make it , we ’d learn that we ’d get card at 4:45 p.m. , on which we could indicate which models we wanted ( with a limit of two per customer ) . That would have been great : storage employees could have compared those placard with their inventory and figured out whether or not they had enough iPads on hand . But those card never get in .
Even without the cards , someone could have ( a ) consider heads in the line of products , ( b ) numerate boxes in the store , and ( c ) compared the two numbers . It ’s not that severe . ( As one of my Facebook friends quip , “ There must be an app for that . ” )
But nobody , apparently , did that , either . So we were leave alone to suffer there , in the cold wind , wondering whether they ’d have the iPads we desire if and when we ever got to the front of the logical argument . Occasionally rumors would sweep down the line—”They’re out of 16GBs , ” or “ There are no white unity exit . ”
depot the great unwashed did come up down the line once in a while , but they were n’t particularly helpful . One guy made a jokey announcement about line - cutters . ( We ’d have to police them ourselves , he said , because he was a crybaby and could n’t do it for us . ) in the end , around 6 p.m. , one of the Store citizenry confirmed that thereprobablywouldn’t be any bloodless models lead when we got to the front . And , then , a half - 60 minutes later , he add up back to say that thereprobablywouldn’t beanyiPads ofanycolor when our incision of the line finally made it to the entrepot .
At that item I in the end gave up . So did some of my fellow linesters . But as I walked away , hoping to find a warm drinkable , most of the people in contrast had n’t proceed . Despite all evidence to the contrary , many of them still had hope .
[ Dan Miller is executive editor of Macworld . ]
