As did another few thousand people I was awake at 6:20am this
morning to get my hands on a shiny new 3G iPhone. Little did I
know that by 14:17 I would have spent a total of 4 hours
queueing for a phone in 2 different locations…one time
actually having my hands on the 3G iPhone and then being
DENIED!
It all started at the North Finchley O2 store this morning at
7:05 when myself a colleague got on the bikes and headed up
there to queue. There were about 30 people in front of us and
shortly after another 35 joined so 65-70ish people. Soon
out came the doughnuts to keep us happy in the slightly chilly
air! 8:02am and the first set of 5 eager punters entered the
store…and that’s all that happened for about an hour after
that. Hearing dribs and drabs of information that the O2
activation systems had gone down we still persisted; and then
came the news that they were out of 16GB phones…all 12 of
them! That was the final straw for about 20 people and they
somberly made their way away from the queue. I wasn;t fussed
whether it was 8GB or 16GB as i mostly use mine for internet
access however the option would have been nice! At 9:30 it was
make or break for me as any later would have meant taking a
day off work or being late, neither of which i fancied much.
So i handed my Number 29 badge (my place in the queue) to the O2 sales staff and gave her my 2 pennies worth about my experience. My colleague waited for another 45 mins to around 10:15ish and still didn’t get a phone!
Lunch Time 12:57, myself and another colleague went to Oxford street Carphone warehouse (ok i know that was a mistake) to see if we could get one…no queue. Brilliant! Anyway after an hour of further waiting and having seen my new phone in front of me, something to do with the fact that a totally random name appeared against my account meant i left with nothing, whilst my colleague wanting a new contract was also left leaving with nothing as their systems failed.
This was Apple’s ideal opportunity to get their product into the main stream. Outside every 3G iPhone selling store this morning were the die hard iPhone fans (80% of the people in my queue already had the phone). To say they annoyed them was an understatement; they would have been flashing their new iphone around office block from here to timbucktoo! But no its negative PR all the way! O2 just helped Bill gates slip into retirement that little bit easier!
August 9th, 2008 at 1:47 am
I’m still surprised at how many people turned out on the launch of the 3G iPhone. I’ve even seen them being sold for over $1000 on ebay!