Backman
12-11-2007, 11:42 AM
It takes a very particular type of person to queue outside overnight just for the opportunity to buy the latest craze before anybody else. You need a unique combination of being content to be a guinea pig for a product’s teething problems and be happy to pay top price for the privilege.
A handful of these er… special individuals claimed their spot outside Apple’s flagship store on Regent Street Thursday night, in anticipation of the iPhone’s launch the following evening. I went down to the O2 shop on Oxford Street, which also saw queues on Friday, hours in advance of the magical 6:02pm. I asked a punter, Tim Hughes from Putney, why it was so important to him to be one of the first to own an iPhone “I know that when I go to work tomorrow I’ll be the only guy with this phone, and even if somebody else gets one, I’ll have been the first”. Of course I didn’t have the heart to stop him mid-flow and remind him it was Saturday tomorrow. But I take his point.
I was at the O2 shop in time to see the giant LCD clock tick towards zero hour (or should that be O2 hour?). Interested passers-by asked the numerous reporters and cameramen what was going on. When told it was the iPhone launch, reactions ranged from ‘cool’ to, ‘its just a phone though right?’ as one would probably expect. One man asked me which celebrity was there and seemed disappointed when I told him I wasn’t expecting any. However, this was not entirely accurate because the star on the night was the iPhone.
More (http://chiswickken.typepad.com/ringtone/2007/11/friday-night-at.html)
A handful of these er… special individuals claimed their spot outside Apple’s flagship store on Regent Street Thursday night, in anticipation of the iPhone’s launch the following evening. I went down to the O2 shop on Oxford Street, which also saw queues on Friday, hours in advance of the magical 6:02pm. I asked a punter, Tim Hughes from Putney, why it was so important to him to be one of the first to own an iPhone “I know that when I go to work tomorrow I’ll be the only guy with this phone, and even if somebody else gets one, I’ll have been the first”. Of course I didn’t have the heart to stop him mid-flow and remind him it was Saturday tomorrow. But I take his point.
I was at the O2 shop in time to see the giant LCD clock tick towards zero hour (or should that be O2 hour?). Interested passers-by asked the numerous reporters and cameramen what was going on. When told it was the iPhone launch, reactions ranged from ‘cool’ to, ‘its just a phone though right?’ as one would probably expect. One man asked me which celebrity was there and seemed disappointed when I told him I wasn’t expecting any. However, this was not entirely accurate because the star on the night was the iPhone.
More (http://chiswickken.typepad.com/ringtone/2007/11/friday-night-at.html)