Spot the difference?
owns various important bits of UK real estate including the seabed round the British isles - and Regent Street
Given how wet it was last night, I'm surprised they could tell the difference...
The British authorities have told two of Blighty's most passionate Apple fanbois to remove a "shanty town shack" they have constructed outside London's Regent Street Apple Store. Two diehard Apple nuts set up camp outside the fruity firm's UK flagship shop yesterday in hope of being the first to pick up the new iPhone 5S when …
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But you are sat on your own in front of a computer mocking people who are actually doing something. Whether you think it's worthwhile is neither here not there. They are making friends and enjoying themselves, while you are in a room on your own being a judgemental prick. How dare they like something you don't.
And what a completely pointless waste of time and energy for all concerned.
Is it beyond someone to come up with a better system, rather than having customers physically park themselves outside the shop for days, waiting for a completely arbitrary date & time when they have to physically walk through a door? Just thinking about it shows just how ridiculous the whole charade is.
Apple is supposed to be a tech company, but is reliant on a stupid and outdated method of throttling initial market demand.
You can walk into any carphone warehouse the next day and pick one up at your leisure...
You can also be a normal user and buy the thing one or two months later - and that's not limited to Apple kit. That way you are assured of supply, get a device that has at least made a start with getting debugged and you don't have to spend time in a queue when you wander into a shop - it's my pet hate.
This whole "queueing outside" is either for making hype, or for people falling prey to it. Neither interests me much. Just give me the device. It's that and the eternal court cases that is making me consider alternatives, however much I like the kit.
Meh, I don't have any issue with it myself. If they're in front of the Apple store and both staff and fanbois are having fun, what's the harm? I imagine there's quite a few regulars that meet up and talk at these queue gatherings.
Besides, if someone is obsessive enough to queue outside a shop for four days for a phone, wouldn't it be better to know where they are?
And what a completely pointless waste of time and energy for all concerned.Is it beyond someone to come up with a better system, rather than having customers physically park themselves outside the shop for days, waiting for a completely arbitrary date & time when they have to physically walk through a door?
To be fair to Apple, they will have it delivered to you on release day, if you order online in time. Or you can reserve at a store, if you're so sad you have to have the thing on day 1, so can pick it up where you work, at luch time.
To not be fair to Apple, they've apparently applied for the license for this tent for the last 4 years, making these poor saps basically unpaid marketing fodder for the Cult-of-JobsTM. But then they seem to be perfectly willing to get wet in this cause, so who am I to interfere with their 'fun'. Even if it does make me want to beat a bit of sense into them.
So they get to be first and get their 15 minutes of fame, care of lazy/bored journalists with copy to file. Apple get to look cool (or more realistically weird), especially when their staff start whooping and high-fiving. And everyone else gets to go, "what the hell is going on with some people?", and shake their heads sadly at the state of the world...
Do the staff in the UK stores really do all this high-fiving and whooping? I can understand the US doing it, they're less grumpy and cynical than us, but you'll notice that Wal-Mart did not introduce the Wal-Mart Cheer when they took over ASDA. Although apparently they did when they started up a chain in Germany. I have this mental image of all these poor Germans being forced to raise their hands and fist-pump while mumbling "Go Wal-Mart! Go Wal-Mart!" And I'm going to resist all temptation to make any bad-taste jokes here, I'll leave that to Basil Fawlty...
There is a better system. It's already used by Disney parks and some automobile registration offices in Texas.
You get a ticket saying the wait is x minutes long. When it gets to be near that time, you go back to the queue. The wait may be hours when you first get your ticket, but you only need to spend a few minutes physically standing in a queue.
This doesn't give you bragging rights with other fans. It also doesn't give you the chance to show the world the lengths you will go to for your iThingie by your presence on a sidewalk for days in the rain. It would deprive Apple of the free extra publicity.
.... had a sense of perspective.
These two t1t5 seem to have lost this completely. This is 'phone we're talking about here, not the worlds first brain transplant, of a water powered car, or proof of sentient life on Mars, or a perpetual motion machine.
It's a 'phone. OK, less copper wire than Bell or Meucci had foreseen.....
But a 'phone none the less.
Idiots.
Other shops sell iDevices on launch day, and they don't have queues of fanbois waiting in line. They could go to one of them if they really can't wait. Carphone Warehouse for example is just round the corner in Oxford Street.
There are companies with names such as "rent a crowd" that supply people to queue for events such as this. There is however no evidence that Apple has engaged the services of one of these companies.