Behold, the iQueue

I saw this at Regent Street yesterday. CRAZY. People were waiting 5 hours for iPhones.

I wanted to buy mine online as well, but the trouble is, O2 sold out before release date. Apple Store doesn't sell them. After passing every store on the Strand and finding out that none of them had any iPhone, I discovered that O2 had a list of stores that did have iPhones, but none of them stocked 16G. Apple at least tells you every night where there are iPhones and what model.

It's not Apple's fault. This whole craze is about avoiding people buying a phone and then unlocking it. Which is totally crazy, since they are probably losing far more sales than they are avoiding unlocked phones, if you ask me, but there you go.

I also think that it is anti-competitive practice and that, like in Germany, they should have forced people to sell the phone with no contract.

I went to the T-Mobile store in town (Utrecht, The Neths) and the iPhone on display was not even being used. I did see one guy get an iPhone (no queue or anything), but on the whole it was just another phone on display and nothing like this nuttiness.

From what I understand, the issue isn't Apple's fault directly (aside from dealing with at&t). at&t threw a fit about the 'unlocked phones' and so with the 3G phones, the deal was that every phone sold HAD to be activated with at&t before releasing it to them. Trouble is that ar&t's activation servers aren't even close to being able to handle the load.

I went to the Peabody Massachusetts store on Friday to get a new battery for my laptop, and thought while I was there, I would upgrade to 3G. Ha!

No way, 100 plus people in line. Who has time to stand in line for a couple hours?

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We had a Great iQueue in Naugatuck Ct on 7/11. Went to our out of the way ATT Store ( see the plastic ATT sign still covering up the old cingular Sign!) Got in line @ 6:30 Am and had a working 3G iPhone by 8:29AM. Funny thing, but they sold out of the 16GB white ones before the 16GB Black were gone! I did see a few white MacBooks, but Why get the white as the Black looks so GOOD. The Dummies who waited at the local Apple store by 6:30 AM did not get a working 3G until after 2PM. By then I had been on the road using the 3G and GPS's getting my office emails while @ a DD . Went to the Apple Store that afternoon and what a mess. Had to beg the Apple Store MGR to me get a case as they were not letting in anyone who did not wait in the Then 2.5 Hour long line. I stopped by the New ATT store in the same Mall as the Apple Store and he had iPhones for about 80 customers. He said you could have gotten in line at 8AM and still received the iphone. He said at the Apple Store by 8AM they had Hundreds waiting. I even got a 3G iPhone special bag that day with the Case so I was good to go.

Regent Street is my closest Apple Store. Dammit, I was looking to get an iPhone 3G, but now I think it's time to play the waiting game.

iQueue - what a deliciously pertinent pun :)

Those if us with more IQ will wait for the end if the iQueue before buying :P

I was in that queue on Wednesday... about 1.5 hours altogether. I'm rarely within 120 miles of an Apple store, so I decided to queue anyway.

It was odd that they chose a queue of chairs, rather than "take a number". Every few minutes, we'd have to shuffle to the next chair, which was fine apart from the fact that I had a heavy suitcase with me. I suppose it prevented Deep Vein Thromboses, though.

What I amazed at is that we make so much of these people standing in line, call them stupid and ridicule them, while at the same time we sit at home, watching hours of TV or mindlessly criusing the web. While I don't normally stnd in line for anything, I stood in a line for a couple of hours and rather enjiyed the experience. Just a tought.

Tom