"i came, i saw, iPhone."
Saturday, June 30, 2007 Filed in: my life
it’s true. i got
one.
yesterday morning, i woke up at 3.45 am and me and Joe picked up Jody and Megan and headed down to the Apple Store at Fashion Island. it’s true... the iPhone wasn’t going on sale until 6 pm, but we were in line at 4.40 am.
actually, we were in line to get in line. they wouldn’t let you actually get in line until 5 am, so there was a line to get in line out in the parking lot when we got there at 4.40. we got the 22nd - 26th spots in line and our long day began.
for the first few hours, we just hung out. we all had our laptops and we’re piggybacking on the wifi connection from the Apple Store. we read the news about the iPhone madness around the country and felt proud and nerdy to be apart of it.
around noon, we decided it was time to eat lunch. so, we sent Megan and Jody over to PF Changs to pick us up some stuff. but, as we were eating our lunch it occurred to us that we were losing our shade. in fact, by the time we were done eating, we were sitting directly beneath a blazing sun. (at this point the line was up to about 120 people.)
Stacy had come by to visit, so she and i took a trip to Target™ where be bought what we thought would be like an easy-up tent. however, when we returned, we realized that there was nothing easy about getting this tent up. it was in about 100 different pieces. luckily for us, there was another guy in line (who, by the way, brought a solar panel to power all of his gadgets while waiting in line) who had just recently put up the exact same tent at another function. he jumped in, and within 15 minutes, we had some sweet shade and were munching on the Sprinkles™ cupcakes we had also stopped to pick up. we put up our sleeping bags (yes, we were sleeping earlier) as walls to our tent and we had our own little exclusive clubhouse. in fact, the guy from the OC Register said we had the best setup and took our pictures and interviewed us.
at 2.00 pm, the Apple Store closed for business and put up black paper in the windows so nobody could see what was going on in there. at around 5.00 pm, the paper all came down and there were iPhones EVERYWHERE in there. at this point there were about 250 people in line and the excitement (and sunburn) was very noticeable. the displays in the windows were counting down the last hour by the second and everybody was on edge.
at about 5.15 pm, we tore down our tent, folded up our chairs, packed up our computers and rolled up the sleeping bags and took turns getting all of that into the cars.
at 5.55 pm, the crowd had pushed forward and was getting ready for the opening. the last 10 seconds, of course, had a countdown. (ps... counting down to anything but the new year seems anticlimactic somehow. like... what do you yell at the end?) anyway, they let us in the store 10 at a time where droves of Apple employees were giving high-fives and cheering us on as we came in to spend ridiculous amounts of money on phones and accessories. also, they had employees (like my friend, Joe, who is a manager there) going around taking people’s pictures with the iPhone and e-mailing it to them at home. (very cool)
getting the phones was fast. i had mine and my dad’s within 10 minutes of entering the store. but then they had the display models out. we started playing with them and were so overwhelmed with how cool they were that we didn’t want to leave. finally, we jetted out of there and rushed home where we took showers and opened our iPhones in a Christmas-like fashion.
by the way, they’re awesome! i mean.... there are some things that aren’t perfect about them, but on the whole... they’re awesome! i highly recommend picking one up if you have the means.
peace, love and iPhones...
matt
ps... extra kudos to the Apple Store staff. they treated us great and brought out bottled water (not even the cheap stuff... Smart Water™!) and coffee many times over the course of the day.
yesterday morning, i woke up at 3.45 am and me and Joe picked up Jody and Megan and headed down to the Apple Store at Fashion Island. it’s true... the iPhone wasn’t going on sale until 6 pm, but we were in line at 4.40 am.
actually, we were in line to get in line. they wouldn’t let you actually get in line until 5 am, so there was a line to get in line out in the parking lot when we got there at 4.40. we got the 22nd - 26th spots in line and our long day began.
for the first few hours, we just hung out. we all had our laptops and we’re piggybacking on the wifi connection from the Apple Store. we read the news about the iPhone madness around the country and felt proud and nerdy to be apart of it.
around noon, we decided it was time to eat lunch. so, we sent Megan and Jody over to PF Changs to pick us up some stuff. but, as we were eating our lunch it occurred to us that we were losing our shade. in fact, by the time we were done eating, we were sitting directly beneath a blazing sun. (at this point the line was up to about 120 people.)
Stacy had come by to visit, so she and i took a trip to Target™ where be bought what we thought would be like an easy-up tent. however, when we returned, we realized that there was nothing easy about getting this tent up. it was in about 100 different pieces. luckily for us, there was another guy in line (who, by the way, brought a solar panel to power all of his gadgets while waiting in line) who had just recently put up the exact same tent at another function. he jumped in, and within 15 minutes, we had some sweet shade and were munching on the Sprinkles™ cupcakes we had also stopped to pick up. we put up our sleeping bags (yes, we were sleeping earlier) as walls to our tent and we had our own little exclusive clubhouse. in fact, the guy from the OC Register said we had the best setup and took our pictures and interviewed us.
at 2.00 pm, the Apple Store closed for business and put up black paper in the windows so nobody could see what was going on in there. at around 5.00 pm, the paper all came down and there were iPhones EVERYWHERE in there. at this point there were about 250 people in line and the excitement (and sunburn) was very noticeable. the displays in the windows were counting down the last hour by the second and everybody was on edge.
at about 5.15 pm, we tore down our tent, folded up our chairs, packed up our computers and rolled up the sleeping bags and took turns getting all of that into the cars.
at 5.55 pm, the crowd had pushed forward and was getting ready for the opening. the last 10 seconds, of course, had a countdown. (ps... counting down to anything but the new year seems anticlimactic somehow. like... what do you yell at the end?) anyway, they let us in the store 10 at a time where droves of Apple employees were giving high-fives and cheering us on as we came in to spend ridiculous amounts of money on phones and accessories. also, they had employees (like my friend, Joe, who is a manager there) going around taking people’s pictures with the iPhone and e-mailing it to them at home. (very cool)
getting the phones was fast. i had mine and my dad’s within 10 minutes of entering the store. but then they had the display models out. we started playing with them and were so overwhelmed with how cool they were that we didn’t want to leave. finally, we jetted out of there and rushed home where we took showers and opened our iPhones in a Christmas-like fashion.
by the way, they’re awesome! i mean.... there are some things that aren’t perfect about them, but on the whole... they’re awesome! i highly recommend picking one up if you have the means.
peace, love and iPhones...
matt
ps... extra kudos to the Apple Store staff. they treated us great and brought out bottled water (not even the cheap stuff... Smart Water™!) and coffee many times over the course of the day.