People Come Out in Droves to Line-up for iPhone on Apple's 'iDay';
Too Early to Tell How History will View/Record June 29th, 2007
| by Joe Leo, Columnist |
NOT A 'CINGULAR' SENSATION: Bay Street, Emeryville in California is home to both an Apple Store (inset) and an AT&T owned and operated Cingular Wireless Store. Hundreds of people lined up at the Apple Store while roughly 100 people were at Cingular Wireless, the line extending off-camera. [PHOTO: ©2007, J. Leo]
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We had planned on staying the whole evening down in Emervyille to cover this story because of our special angle on how the Apple Store in this area of the San Francisco Bay Area is across from the Cingular Wireless Store in the same narrow street.
Unfortunately, in order to take photos of the iPhone from inside the Apple Store, we had to head into the heart of San Francisco to the Apple Store on Stockton Street, to where Apple extended an invitation to members of the media to come by and do their reporting and photography over there. So we took advantage of that, but?
We missed the commotion in what would have been an interesting spectacle--trust us on that one--over at Bay Street in Emeryville. Why? Read our story from last week.
On the BART train over to San Francisco, (BART standing for "Bay Area Rapid Transit" system, the subway system in this part of California) the iPhone hype was clearly in the air. College-age guys behind us--or in front of us, since the train was headed forward and our seat was facing opposite--were discussing the iPhone, iPod, and [Apple]TV.
We say college-age because of their comments, one saying how he'd need all of his credit cards just to be able to pay for one iPhone. This same guy said to his friends how the iPhone was one phone you don't want to drop on the ground. (How many times have you done that?).
The most interesting comment we heard was, "In a year, they'll have upgraded the iPhone."
Interesting because that is the consensus among those who are holding out on buying the iPhone right away. Among other things, such as working the bugs out, what about AT&T as a wireless provider, or maybe even the thing people want the most.
Holding out for the iPhone sans the phone-- the iPod part of the iPhone.
When we got to our station, we stopped by the information booth to ask which end of the Powell Street station exited directly to the Apple Store, since we don't regularly take BART. Hardly ever.
All three ladies in the booth said, "You're late already man! It happened an hour ago." We pointed out that we were on a story and had started in Emervyille. "Emeryville? What's wrong with you. This is the place!"
After telling us which way to go, all three said, "Buy us an iPhone! We want one."