Here is my story of the day… I woke up at 4:30 am and arrived at the Fairview Apple Store at 5:20 am hoping to get a good position in line for the iPhone 4. People gradually started showing up after 6:30 am and lined up neatly in front of the storefront. With great anticipation, we were greeted by an Apple Store manager but was told that they did NOT have stock and did NOT know if they will be coming in today. This is a typical icebreaker managers use to “comfort” the fellow fanboys/gals… Not a big deal! Now let the clock tick!
Around 11:30 am, we saw a few shipments arriving at the store… but was again told by store officials that the delivery did not contain any iPhone 4… so time continued to tick. Around 12:45 pm people started to get excited because a few large boxes showed up! But again… NO IPHONE 4s! The good thing was… time knows no limits… and either did any of our fellow fanboys/gals! Therefore, another 3 hours flew us by… but the only thing it left everyone with was the ultimate truth – THE STORE WILL NOT BE GETTING ANY IPHONES TODAY!
People looked at each other in dismay… How could an Apple Store be out of iPhones and not know when the next shipment is coming in… but only to drop a definitive nuke after making people age while standing in front of the store? This just does not make sense! Why couldn’t the manager get this information sooner? Knowing that the information could be obtained… but only to tell customers that they have wasted their life waiting! I think the answer to this has something to do with the discussed “antennagate” problem. You see… the iPhone 4 does have a very prominent weak spot in its antenna structure. While the problem is not so evidential in all areas, it may cause your call to drop while in an area with less than optimal signal coverage. Steve Jobs then came out and introduced the Free Case Program for all iPhone owners. It wasn’t a solid solution, but it was better than nothing. After all, Apple rarely gives stuff away unless they mess up really bad. (Remember the whole free upgrade from MacOS 10.0 to 10.1 offer? MacOS 10.0 probably had more problems than Windows XP and Vista combined.) However, Steve admitted to the fact the new antenna system performed slightly worse than its previous generation design, but he insisted that the media had blown the facts out of proportion… because he think it really wasn’t that bad.
Maybe Steve was right, or maybe he was trying to cover things up… but everyone in the press room knew how much turbulence this pesky little problem had caused the mighty Apple. How can Apple fix this and defend its corporate image as “the best on the planet”? Here comes clever marketing!
If Apple only knows how to do two things… it’s marketing… and marketing! While the mighty Apple may have taken a few punches… those wounds can easily be healed by making a couple of customers stand in line for the alleged “magical device”. While I was waiting in line, passer-bys kept asking us what we are waiting in line for… and we would prodly answer: “iPhone 4!”. There you go everyone, let Apple takes u back into the classroom with this one. I think this is why nobody knew when shipments will be in… but it needs help tell the story – that Apple fanboys/gals are crazy enough to wait for it even if they know the risks of wasting their lives!
You can call me a conspiracy nut or whatever… and I did see a lot of international college students waiting in line to grab a few phones as gifts when they return. So either all these phones have been grabbed by them and secretly exported to China… or Apple is taking advantage of the fact that certain people are looking to grab an iPhone for the bragging rights… or Apple is limiting supply to drive up the phones’ price in the grey/black-market.
Personally, I don’t buy that they can’t make enough phones after 2 weeks of launching the device. Judging by the number of people who lined up… the demand is strong and suggests that many people are without phones! Either way, there are lessons to be learned from all this. Never be too desperate for a phone, never be to evil to people who pay your salary because sooner or later they will catch on.
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