Here ya go. It’s easy to find plenty of stories about it by Googling.
I don’t get it either, and I’ve been an apple fanboi since I could read.
When I want a new phone or iPad or 'puter I just order the damn thing online. It’s the 21st century for fuck’s sake.
Absolutely. First-hand experience.
There’s a carpenter’s union here in Utah that pickets major construction sites that employ non-union carpenters. Since it isn’t very damaging to hold up signs that say GO TO HELL, L&L CONTRACTORS, they picket the businesses that actually occupy the building, both during and after construction. They had SHAME ON TARGET - LABOR DISPUTE and SHAME ON CABELA’S - LABOR DISPUTE picket lines for at least a year after each of those stores opened.
There’s a hospital being built right across the street from my clinic, and sure enough, these guys are picketing. But now it’s no longer a LABOR DISPUTE; now the signs read SHAME ON MOUNTAINSTAR HEALTHCARE - IMMIGRANT LABOR ABUSE, and the claim is that in circumventing union labor, the contractors are also employing illegal immigrants with impunity. (Since paleoconservative, John-Birch-central Utah hates illegal immigrants and labor unions with equal fervor, I think this is a good strategy on their part.)
At any rate, this picket station is always manned (womanned) by between two and four Native American women, and they would keep coming across the street to use our bathroom, rightly supposing that they wouldn’t get a very warm reception if they asked to use the porta-potties of the people they were picketing. I asked one of them if they were carpenters. She said no, they weren’t, though a couple of their husbands were union carpenters. They were paid a minimal amount by the union to do the picketing.
At least here in Utah, this practice is the standard. They’re literally the only picketers I’ve ever seen, and they’re pretty common.
Wow, that is disappointing. I did do a google search but failed to hit on the right combinaton of words/phrases I guess.
Oh well. back to your regularly scheduled mocking of people lining up to buy iPhones, I guess.
At my very suburban New Jersey mall the demographics were very mixed. No trends I could tell other than being mostly, but not exclusively, male.
The horror!! :eek:
Apple’s target demographic is dumbasses who like to stand in line. Even if you go to the normal Apple store for something as routine as a product exchange, you typically have to make an appointment to wait in line to see some tech who will then exchange it for you.
Most normal stores, this is a five minute trip to the Customer Service line.
Except that the vast majority of their hardware sales are through online channels. The dumbasses who wait on line represent a tiny fraction of Apple’s retail revenue, so how could that be their target demographic?
No you don’t. For support or repairs you may need to make an appointment if they’re busy. Certainly not for an exchange.
All I know is I ordered mine Tuesday around noon (I was gonna order it at 12:01am Monday night but then saw it was 12:01 *PDT *and I live in NY and wasn’t going to sit up till three in the morning just to order the damn thing!) and it arrived on my front porch as scheduled at 2:52pm today (Friday Sept 19th). Waiting in line for one is to hipsters what waiting in line for The Phantom Menace was to nerds… 
The people camping out for the new device aren’t the bulk of the actual sales, but they do provide an easy visual hook (every TV station in the country had a story featuring a live shot of people camping outside an Apple or mobile store) that gives a palpable sense of the hype and might actually help drive the online sales.
I bought mine online the day after they were available for pre-ordering.
It showed up at my house this afternoon. I have no idea why so many people waited in line today.
Yes, I agree that Apple is really excellent at the hype machine, and line campers are a big part of that. But it’s disingenuous to imply that they’re the target demographic, because they aren’t. They’re what Stalin used to call Useful Idiots.
People are Stupid?
:o Hey! I stood in line at midnight to get the last Harry Potter, but then I read until 4AM…I had to know about those damned horcruxes!
I went by the local Border’s that night and there was a huge line and a sign up that all copies were spoken for.
So I went to Raley’s(supermarket) and got it for $5.00 off. They had a whole end cap display and no one knew about it.
A lot of the line for this iPhone 6 is for China. Unlike the 5s, China didn’t get first-day release for the iPhone 6. You go to the store, wait awhile, buy two unlocked phones, and then sell them on eBay/friends in China for a hefty mark-up. That’s why there’s little to no lines at the carrier-stores in NYC, but a 6 block line at Apple’s 5th Avenue.
Sneakers are quite a bit different because most of the time they’re limited releases. So if you don’t wait in line to buy them, you’ll have to pay a significantly higher price on the secondary market.
So, to really answer your question: Money.
And for those who didn’t, or couldn’t, preorder: Instant Gratification.
A six minute video on the darkside underlying it: Black Market Takes Over the iPhone 6 Lines - YouTube
Because it’s been so long since the same geeks (or their ilk) could do the same for the latest* Star Wars* movie.
Amazon’s new ad: Flavor Flav walks past a bunch of guys in line for Apple products. “Don’t believe the hype!”…then he proceeds to order stuff online.
I should charge for that.