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Leopard Day in Knoxville

by Mat Lu Oct 26th 2007 at 8:30PM



It's finally here: Leopard launch day! So I headed down to my local Apple store in Knoxville to join in the fun (and pick up shirt along with a nice new 24" iMac). I thought I'd take you along for the ride. As per usual with the Apple Store, things were run to near perfection. By 6pm the line was well down that wing of the Mall, and when the doors opened they just started handing out shirts to everyone in line. I got there a little late and so was standing in line for about 20 minutes before I got my shirt. They even sent out an Apple Store employee with a cart full of bottled water to hand out to folks in line. There was an impressive number of Apple Store employees, some of them apparently on the store floor for the first time that night.

Once in the store, we entered another rapidly moving line. We were met at the head of the line by an Apple Store employee who asked what we wanted, then scurried off to get the iMac. They came back, took our credit card with their little PDA-like devices and we were off. As you can see in the gallery, many other folks were playing with the display Macs, talking to Apple Store employees, and generally enjoying the up-beat vibe of the Leopard launch.

As I said before, I was absolutely impressed by how well run the entire thing was. Even though there were hundreds of people there, we were back in the car and headed home by 6:45pm with our precious new iMac. My biggest surprise is that they weren't hawking external hard drives more. Sure enough when I opened the box of the iMac there was fresh copy of Leopard waiting to be installed.

Leopard Day in Knoxville



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It's finally here: Leopard launch day! So I headed down to my local Apple store in Knoxville to join in the fun (and pick up shirt along...
 

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Alex

@Ed, oh that's awesome. Pay $20 for a free shirt.

I don't think so.

October 29 2007 at 11:44 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
robertlay

Sweet! I'm in the photos as well! I'm the guy sitting on the floor in line. Thanks for posting! I had no idea that a TUAW contributer was up in Knoxville! Do you guys have a MUG up there by chance?

October 29 2007 at 10:37 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jonathan

Cool. I was there as well. I could see myself in a couple of photos too! I must have missed the dude with the free water though.

I was able to request an XL shirt and got it so I guess if you are complaining you should have gotten there earlier. What else can you expect them to do? Come to your house and ask you what kind of shirt you would like?

October 28 2007 at 4:22 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Mike

Ahh the launch is over.. so do we get the old TUAW wallpaper back now?

October 27 2007 at 7:11 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
MfS

No one's yet represented the Orland Square Mall (southwestern suburbs of Chicago) Apple Store event...so I will.

About 100-200 people in line, probably got to about 300 at one point I think. I was about 50th in line. Thankfully, I had my iPhone with me so I didn't have to answer the 5,000 questions of passers-by such as "What's this line for?" and "What's a Mac?" or "Leopard? What's Apple?" Ugh.

Anyway, employees handed out Deja Blue water to anybody in line. Nice touch! They didn't do that at the store's Grand Opening.

There were two shirt sizes: L or XL. I got one of each (my family surprised me & showed up). The employees were super-nice. I got hands-on with Leopard for about 2 minutes, then a hungry 2-year-old needed to be fed.

Overall, a fun experience. I didn't buy Leopard, we ordered it through Amazon.com for work...so by next Wednesday it should be here.

October 27 2007 at 12:16 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Galley

No Apple Store (yet) here in Greenville, SC so we had a launch party at CompUSA. About 70 people were there at 6:00. I didn't get one of the 20 free T-shirts. :-(
It was our MUG president's birthday, so we all chipped in and got him the Family Pack. :-)

October 27 2007 at 10:39 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Phil

I said it before in another thread - but the experience couldn't have been more different in London. The largest Apple store on Earth and it was a madhouse - no organisation for the line and a mad crush of people pushing in after jumping the line at 5 minutes of 6. Only M and L shirts - I got a M but managed to finagle a L.

October 27 2007 at 5:09 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
AndrewNMI

I went to the launch at Twelve Oaks mall in Novi, Michigan and it was packed. There was hardly room to walk! I got the large shirt and I saw one of the female employees there was wearing leopard ears or something like that. There was a line very much like the one shown here.

October 27 2007 at 3:31 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jason Sneed

Here are some pictures of the OSX Leopard Launch from the Apple store in Norfolk VA.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/68805962@N00/sets/72157602726927460/

October 27 2007 at 12:41 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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