How to Get an I-Phone (or Not)

Go to AT&T store. They’re all out and don’t know when they’ll have more in. They say they leave the moment they arrive.

On the advice of a friend, go to the Apple Store. They have a poster saying “I-Phone 3G not available today. Check the web after 9pm about tomorrow’s availability.”

Check web at 9:30pm. It says they’ll be available at the store tomorrow.

Show up at Apple store at 9:15 am. Hear they open at 9am, even though their website says 9:30am.

See long line of people waiting, blocking the Verizon booth. Watch somewhat amused and somewhat depressed Verizon employees, who have no customers.

Wait in line. Sit down and do computer work. Overhear people complain about the I-Phone plans while camping out for one.

Get moved by security guard for blocking the Verizon booth.

Move up in line slowly as people are escorted in by Apple store employees, one by one, every three or four minutes. Be amazed that while Portlanders won't generally wait 20 minutes in lines for restaurants or shows, they'll wait in line for hours for hip new phones that don't even record video. Two weeks after they first went on sale.

At 10am watch the Apple employee handing out permission cards to those in line, based on whether they want the 16gb White or the 16gb Black. Get informed they have no 8gb phones, which is what you want. No one else seems to want the 8gb.

Patiently listen Apple employee explain there is no way of knowing which phones they'll have in stock until they open the box of phones at 10 am. Hey! It's like Christmas!

Leave line. Curse.

Note irony of high-tech toy having such low-tech distribution and sales information.

Consider blowing off visiting out-of-state parents to sit in line for days. Think better of it.

Plan to be back next week, perhaps Monday morning, as I-Phones are better than heroin.

Purchase camp chair. Learn about sit-lie ordinance. Remember that one could have read up about sit-lie ordinance if only one had an I-Phone.

Comments

[drew Bernard]

Evan, you are a patient man. I finally went the ATT store and put in an order. But then decided to swing by the Apple store on a whim last Friday morning at 9:15, also thinking it opened at 9:30. As I walked in the door, one of the"geniuses" handed me a ticket for the black 16g that I wanted and the rest was history.

Incidentally, in SF a few weeks when I walked by the store the line was 5 hours long. And people had no guarantee what phones would be left when they go to the front of the line.

But my wife loves her new phone :-)

[Evan Manvel]

Well, I'm wired now. I went last Friday at 8:30 am and had about 15 employees free to help me. No line. About 4 other customers in the store.

Now I have my 8GB phone, which is generally treating me pretty well -- though some things aren't intuitive, and other things are hidden. And sync-ing with my work e-mail doesn't yet work. :)