IPhone 5: Customers in the Big Apple camp out 8 days early

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/09/16/iphone-5-customers-in-the-big-apple-camp-out-8-days-early/

by pohungc • 14 years ago

24 45 14 years ago

tech.fortune.cnn.com

dexen• 14 years ago

Back in the day, when my (central-european) country was under soviet rule, people would queue and wait for hours to get essentials: from meat to toilet paper. Today -- this.

Honestly, I can't comprehend -- either end of equation. Why is there shortage of devices, and why are people waiting so stubbornly -- especially given Apple's history of lowering prices a few months after launch.

farhanpatel• 14 years ago

These people aren't camping out to just get an iPhone. They are using the publicity to raise donations for cancer research.

Most of the people are camping out for publicity, not for the phone.

seivan• 14 years ago

I take it you didn't read the article?

Just asking, because I didn't know about this, but do Apple usually lower the prices after the initial launch? Isn't it like usually when they release upgraded models?

xenophanes• 14 years ago

What the heck are you talking about? Apple does not lower iPhone prices a few months after launch.

Apple frequently doesn't lower prices on anything until the next model comes out.

And I think day 1 lines have a lot to do with the stores being crowded with limited space and staff, not just supply.

Also, ramping up factories to build this is hard. And you don't want to have an extra factory just for launch day, you want supply/demand balance longer term. You can build up some supply before launch but you don't want to delay launch for a long time to build up aging supply.

evan_• 14 years ago

The only time in recent memory that Apple lowered the price of an iPhone- or any hardware- without releasing a new version was the first generation iPhone, 5+ years ago. It's very rare.

ihuman• 14 years ago

And that was because it wasn't originally Carrier-Subsidized, if I remember correctly.

jcurbo• 14 years ago

There's a shortage of devices because people buy them as fast as Apple can make them.

josephlord• 14 years ago

TL;DR - Publicity seekers/marketing opportunists not hard core Apple fans.

jrockway• 14 years ago

The funny thing is how amazingly well this marketing works, especially in the era of blogs.

I recently bought http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator..., which talks about the fake news the author manufactures to sell his clients' products.

thornofmight• 14 years ago

Don't these people have jobs?

arasmussen• 14 years ago

If their job is in marketing or social media, it seems they are doing it.

jws• 14 years ago

Yes. Sitting in line for free publicity. It's worked for the first seven. (Note to Fortune: you failed to count to seven correctly.)

jpxxx7• 14 years ago

Apple's got the tightest hardware, best performance, best sales channel, widest distribution, widest manufacturing channel, best service, best support, best third-party ecosystem, best carrier support, best -working- voice assistant service, best customer satisfaction, highest re-up rates, highest subscriber retention rates, highest ARPU, clearest UX, strongest developer support, widest app selection, highest ASP, best margin, best packaging, best pack-ins, most robust "cloud", deepest content library, widest content market coverage, highest perceived status, strongest brand name, and the thickest boot pressing into the necks of more carriers than any other smartphone line in the entire world.

But all of this is going to be chalked up to "marketing" creating "sheeple" who voluntarily line up for the slaughter.

te_chris• 14 years ago

Most robust "cloud"? Really? You know their main competitor is google right? The company that has been responsible for millions of people embracing the cloud before apple even cared it existed?

batgaijin2• 14 years ago

Their main competitor is carrier phones that don't handle OS updates in a timely manner/at all.

I have an android phone with cyanogen, but if someone complained about android I'd be totally understanding. The stock stuff is terrible.

jpxxx7• 14 years ago

Yes, really. I argue that iCloud is a more robust and coherent offering at this point. It goes toe-to-toe with Android Backup when it comes to backing up relevant user-state (like SMS history, a very valuable datatype), offers desirable features like find-a-phone and remote wipe, offers unsexy but fundamental functionality like Notes round-tripping, and offers ad-free IMAP mailboxes that don't explode on contact with desktop clients.

iCloud still doesn't offer arbitrary file storage like Google Drive and its photo story is inadequate and confusing. But it is competitive on the whole, and Apple found some dogwhistle to blow that made "iCloud" a real thing for extremely tech-uninvolved people. (I'm not sure if this was anything they actually did on their part or if it was just coincident with the "cloud" buzzword coming to mean "I, the user, won't lose my stuff if my phone/laptop breaks")

Also, Android backup is not a freebie: the manufacturer needs to be playing by OHA rules and staying in Google's good graces so that they can get access to all those Google-backed goodies. And then of course there's carrier-cloud and the vaporous S-Cloud and Asus cloud and all the third-party services and and.... and...

Apple's put it together under one brand name and an ID you already have.

mtgx• 14 years ago

Best voice assistant service? You must've missed all the comparisons with Google's Voice Search, which shows significantly better results, and is faster, too.

batista• 14 years ago

No, I saw those comparison videos.

Google's results were far worse. And it's not about "voice search", it's about "voice assistant".

shawndumas• 14 years ago

what happens, in jellybean, if you schedule an appointment via voice for an already taken time slot?

busyant• 14 years ago

All of what you mention may be true (I don't really know if it is), but spending 8 days in line for a phone (even a great one) seems out of proportion even when taking into consideration all of the superlatives you mention. I think that's where "sheeple" gets some traction.

jpxxx7• 14 years ago

This line is composed of attention seekers taking advantage of a colossal and global attention machine in action.

nwienert2• 14 years ago

A large portion of your points don't matter to a majority of consumers: sales channel, distribution, manufacturing channel, carrier support, re-up rates, retention rates (difference?), ARPU, dev support, ASP, margin, packaging, perceived status. Some are duplicates (service/support, re-up/retention, deepest/widest content, status/brand). Another portion are purely opinion... cloud, dev support, "pack ins" (?), voice assistant (google now often performce better), performance (its a wash), UX (many people prefer customizable UX). Some are even negative to certain people such as their brand, ARPU (high margins), and their cloud (not supporting alternatives).

And of course that doesn't count the many, many categories they do poorly in that are important to people. Off the top of my head are customizability, open technologies, keyboard (software), screen size, choice in hardware features and software features (default browsers, default apps, etc), extensibility, tech standards/ports, 3rd part extensibility, navigation (seems like IO6 maps are getting bad reviews thus far), and richer apps that can integrate beyond the strict sandbox, etc.

Finally, their marketing is one of their strongest traits and so of course marketing is a huge driver of sales. Not that I agree with calling anyone "sheeple", so not really sure what your point was.

jpxxx7• 14 years ago

Re-up is staying on the same phone. Retention is staying on the same carrier. Performance is not a wash, even comparing flagship phones.

My greater point is that without excelling in all of those things I mentioned, people wouldn't be lining up. An iPhone launch would have all the public excitement of a crate of HTC Wonkadoodles being dumped out on the floor of some Verizon kiosk.

Nativist zealotry and jealousy is blinding a lot of otherwise thoughtful people to how well Apple is executing and just preposterously powerful they're becoming. I'm not cheering it, I'm just pointing it out.

Their products are competitive, they are desirable, and their current profit share and market share strongly argues that they're choosing the right areas to optimize.

cageface5• 14 years ago

According to the article the people in line are just trying to grab some free publicity for themselves.

Apple's doing a lot of things right, to be sure, but their phone market share is still sliding, the newer flagship Android phones are extremely competitive, and the gap in the app market has narrowed considerably in the last year. Perhaps worst of all, they seem to be cruising on the momentum of earlier successes, with their rigid UI essentially unchanged since 2007 except a continued cynical slide into gratuitous skeuomorphism. They need a post-Jobs new home run product in the next 2-3 years.

Personally I'm pretty happy with the way the mobile market is shaping up right now because, in the long run, a monoculture with one dominant player is boring.

jpxxx7• 14 years ago

I completely agree with everything you said. This is a Samsun and Apple game, with Samsung occupying every niche and market Apple won't take. There's no third platform evolving.

And yeah, if Apple goes sub-$200, it's going to have to be with a wizzy new design. The flagship model is maturing.

digeridoo• 14 years ago

Apple is in the same branch as sports clubs and religious institutions. They have wildly different products, but a similar way of working: speaking to people's basic desire to be part of something greater than them. With the same vigour that religious devotees promote their book, and sports fans promote their football club, Apple customers promote their phone. That's fine, it's human. In many cases there is some truth to it. I'm guilty of at least one of these 3. It's also perfectly normal that you view your behaviour in this regard as being rational, while it actually isn't.

keeperofdakeys• 14 years ago

Besides more then a few of these being more opinion then fact, I don't think the wider application selection is valid like it was one or two years ago. While there certainly are specific applications you can find on the iphone only, these also exist for Android. If you really want numbers, apple said 700 000 at the latest presentation, and android seems to have had 600 000 a few months ago.

linuxhansl• 14 years ago

The pre-announcement of new hardware, the (what appears to be) artificial scarcity during the first weeks or months remind me of nightclubs with bouncers. No nightclub is cool without lines of folks in front of it, who want to get in.

Personally I never watch a popular movie on the first weekend or stand in line for anything really (if I can avoid it). So from my viewpoint this looks like insanity.

Whatever floats your boat. If camping out for 8 days to buy a phone makes you happy... More power to you.

Edit: Spelling.

ghshephard2• 14 years ago

It's been many years (if ever) since Apple tried to create scarcity to sell their phone. Every day that they are unable to sell a customer an iPhone because they don't have inventory, is a potential lost sale, as someone just buys a Galaxy S3, or decides to wait for the Lumia 920 - both of which are acceptable substitutes for the iPhone 5. Once that customer buys a competitors phone, they don't only lose out on the short term sale, they lose out on the content follow-ons, and, perhaps even worse, they lose out on the upgrade sale 2 years from now when (in North America) that person's contract comes up and they have to get a new phone.

Apple's inability to build enough iPhones is going to cost them Billions of dollars of lost revenue. You can buy a lot of marketing for that kind of money, particularly at Apple's margins.

So, no, there is no artificial scarcity at work here - just the sheer challenges of trying to manufacture 10s of millions of phones over a short period of time. This is not an easy thing to do.

eboyer2• 14 years ago

yikes, did someone not tell these people about the pre-orders? they could of gone on with their lives and got it the same day from the mailman.

xtdx• 14 years ago

yikes, did someone not read the article?

njloof• 14 years ago

Wait, these headlines on Hacker News link to stories?

>click<

Well, I'll be darned.

eboyer2• 14 years ago

wow, you guys sure are mad. my apologies.

pacomerh• 14 years ago

People lining up days earlier to get their iphones used to make me mad, knowing that you can just pre-order it online, no hustle. Now I just see it from a good perspective, these guys have their culture and want to be feel part of it, that's the reason right? I don't think their life is that boring that they have to do these things. It must be passion and excitement. Might sound obvious to some of you, not to me, I have a hard time assimilating this process.

IPhone 5: Customers in the Big Apple camp out 8 days early

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