Category: General Musings

By:

The Dude on the Right
In case you were looking for my iPhone purchasing woes in a blog yesterday, I
have to apologize because I never got around to one. That’s because I was
playing with my new iPhone! Yup, I was only not cool for about 14 hours,
although, had I just gone to the Apple store on Friday evening after my
misgivings at two AT&T stores, I would have been cool sooner.

When I wrote
about

my inabilities to get an iPhone on the Friday launch date, the option to
sign up for AT&T’s "direct fulfillment program" didn’t seem like the best option
for me, even though I did have a comment for that blog saying I should have
signed up for it. My problem is my obsessive nature, and once I had it in my
mind I was going to buy one, signing up for a program that didn’t tell me when I
would actually get the phone wasn’t going to cut it. By the time Friday evening
came along I had done some homework, read many rumors (i.e. all stores selling
the phone would get another shipment on Saturday, although I have had no reason
to confirm if the AT&T stores did get a shipment on Saturday because I already
had my phone so didn’t need to check), but I had an Ace up my sleeve, at least I
hoped so, to getting an iPhone on Saturday, and that was there are five Apple
Stores within an hour of the Dude-Pad. That Ace also had a companion, and that
was the Apple website having
a section showing
iPhone availability for the next day.

After I wrote my blog on Friday night, lamenting on going to bed alone, I
planned my Saturday. It would simply start with waking up in the morning around
the same time I always do. I would shit, shower, and shave, and then head down
to my computer. I would go to the Apple website, check the availability area and
if it showed the iPhone would be available, for sale at 9AM as the website
pronounced, I would hop in the Dude-mobile, head to the closest Apple Store that
showed it had them, and hope for the best. I checked the website, it said my
closest store still had them, and so I skipped my morning paper reading and
headed to the mall. The tricky part was that I always call my Mom on Saturday
mornings, and if push came to shove, calling her would take precedent over
getting the phone. I end up at the Apple Store at about 8:50AM and there were
already about 25 people in front of me. The only hope of getting the phone
before having to call Mom is that unlike folks who were buying the phone at the
AT&T store, who might have needed some questions answered, everyone in front of
me had that look on their face of "give me an 8 gig, and oh yea, this case."

And as this blog is already starting to get too long let me just say a couple
of things to finish this up: First, the Apple folks had a way-impressive force
of getting the iPhone sold and out the door, even at 9:00 AM on a Saturday (I
can’t imagine what happened Friday evening there which I will discuss with Stu
Gotz tomorrow during our

"Stu & The Dude’s Weekend Wrap-Up" podcast). Second, with that force I had my
iPhone purchased at about 9:07 AM, made it back to the Dude-mobile in time to
call my Mom and tell her I bought one, to which she thought I was nuts. Third,
the phone is very cool, although I will admit it looks like they just got a lot
of functionality completed to get the phone out on time, with the rest of it to
come with later software upgrades (the phone doesn’t have real "Ringtone"
capability yet, nor, well, some other simple things my old RAZR had).

But yesterday, at about 9:07 AM, I was cool again, or maybe still just a
dork.  And the day before I got a free bottle of water just for waiting for
an iPhone.

That’s it for this one! 
I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

By:

The Dude on the Right
So here it is, the big day, probably the most important day in recorded history,
and this morning I decided "Screw it, I’m going to try and get an iPhone." 
Having too many things to do during the day meant camping out wasn’t an option
for the 6PM on-sale time, but around where I live there were three stores I
could show up at, figuring around 5:30 should still be safe to get one. 
Store A was in a developing community where I figured demand shouldn’t be that
huge.  Store B was by the mall, and I figured that store would probably be
packed with all of the crazies who took off work to buy a phone.  Store C
was similar to Store A in terms of demographic, but further away.

So I finish
with the things I needed to do this Friday, I get back to the dude-pad around
5PM, do a quick read of the newspaper, eat some grub, and then decide that I’m
going to take my chances at Store A.  Arriving around 5:40PM there’s a line
around the side of the store, putting me at about the 40th in line.  "They
should be stocked fairly well" I tell myself, and even the people that started
arriving after me figured getting a brand spankin’ new iPhone shouldn’t be a
problem.  It’s 6PM, the doors open to the promised land, and they begin by
letting in 6 people, and then as one leaves, another enters.  The line
isn’t moving that quickly, but I’m still confident I will be home this evening,
iPhone in box, then in hand, then activated, and then I’m cool.  In the
meantime the nice AT&T employees (of which it seems they were overstaffed by
about 5 people for the way they were selling the phone) came out offering
bottles of water.  It’s now about 6:15 PM and the manager-looking AT&T dude
comes out and announces, looking at the number of people left in line, that he
wasn’t sure if supply was going to meet demand, blurbs a little about the
"direct fulfillment program" if they do run out, the ducked back into the store. 
The next round of bottled waters comes out, I decide to grab one, and then the
manager-looking dude comes back out and announces the 8 Gig versions are sold
out.  He starts to talk about how they still have some 4 Gig versions left,
the "direct fulfillment program" again, but I’m already heading to the
dude-mobile, mumbling "At least I got a bottle of water."

What to do?  I
decide that since I’m already out I might as well head to Store B, the one by
the mall, on the slim hope they got a monster shipment of phones.  I
arrive, there are about 20 people still in line, and as I take my place the AT&T
employee starts pushing that "direct fulfillment program" again, and I pretty
much know that tonight, unless I really wanted to take a hell of a chance and
head to The Apple Store, I would go to bed iPhone-less.

And so, tonight, I go
to bed alone.

But wait, I could order it on line and have it early next week? 
That would be good enough for me.  I log in to the Apple web site, click to
buy one, and there’s a little note that says it won’t ship for at least 2 weeks.

I read somewhere that there would be plenty of stock to keep everyone iPhoned,
thus killing the eBay market, but if the AT&T stores pretty much sell out of the
phones in about an hour, Apple won’t ship the phone for a couple of weeks, and
those stores don’t get replenished, like, tomorrow, I’m thinking I really should
have camped out last night and seen if some fool would pay me $1,500 bucks for a
new iPhone.

I suppose I should blame myself because part of the reason I am
iPhone-less is because I decided dinner and reading the news was just as
important as getting in line, and had I actually just gone to the store by the
mall, well, I’d probably have a phone this evening, even taking the time to eat
my dinner and read the news.  But you know what – I’m not blaming myself –
I’m blaming the Apple and AT&T people because I’m guessing the only reason they
are selling the 4 Gig iPhone is because they sold out of the 8 Gig, and if they
had only had about ten more 8 Gig versions at Store A, I would be cool.

Instead I just got a free bottle of water.

That’s it for this one! 
I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!