I’m writing to you from a Tim Horton’s in Birmingham city centre where I have just hesitated over buying a medium or a large coffee because there was 75p in the difference. But the reason I’m here at 06:30 on a Friday is that I’ve just queued outside the Apple Store for the new iPhone Duo which costs so much that I cannot, just cannot bring myself to type the figure. <\/p>\n
What I’d rather do is tell you that as silly as I felt heading for the store, it was fun. Standing in the rain with about 30 people, where instead of saying “hello”, everybody would greet you with variations on “why are we doing this?” It was terribly collegiate and friendly and just actually a good time. <\/p>\n
Part of it was that there was even a little tension to spice things up. For once claims of it being hard to get one of these phones are not hype. The foldable iPhone Duo is extraordinarily hard to manufacture, to the extent that the yield of sellable devices was reportedly about 60% of all made just a little while ago. Production is far behind where it would be normally and so people ordering online today are being told they’ll get theirs in late January. <\/p>\n
Apple Stores usually have separate stocks but this time Apple initially wouldn’t comment, then eventually issued a 60-word statement trying to hide the fact that the only word that mattered was “limited”. I wrote a news story around that plus reports that staff were saying there was no point going to stores. Between us, Apple complained about my story, saying it was too aggressive. My editor pushed back, saying give us some actual figures, then, and Apple went silent. <\/p>\n
As I write this to you, there’s also a podcast just coming out that I produce which covers this stuff and in it both I and my co-host say you shouldn’t go to an Apple Store for this, you are so likely to be disappointed. I did specifically add that you shouldn’t go to the Birmingham one. I’m not proud. <\/p>\n
But I recorded that on Wednesday evening and then was up to after midnight interviewing a writer for a book I’m writing about television drama. He was so interesting that I was buzzing and it was easily 02:00 on Thursday morning before I got to sleep. Then for various reasons I had to be up at 06:00 plus I was due a late night seeing an old school friend for dinner on Thursday evening.<\/p>\n
She stood me up. <\/p>\n
I got a bullshit phone call from her on my way home but the result was still that I spent a long evening just driving. <\/p>\n
Consequently I went to bed very tired, very pissed off, and at 05:00 I still got up to come here. <\/p>\n
Hang on, someone just spoke to me. Another buyer. She and her husband had queued from 04:00. And again, it wasn’t “hello”, it was “what did you get and why are we doing this?” Total strangers beaming away at each other, it is great. Mind you, I though I was spending a lot. Between her and her husband, they were buying two large coffees. <\/p>\n
And hang on, I can work this out from what specifically she said they were buying. God in heaven. They’re spending around \u00a36,000. It’s enough to make me feel miserly. I think I will have that bigger coffee. <\/p>\n
Anyway, the queue was around 30-strong when I joined it around 06:00 and it grew to 40 or 50 while I hesitated. There were reports yesterday of hundreds queuing at certain stores so I had thought I’d just take a look and if there were a lot here, I’d go back home, I’d go back to bed. Thirty threw me: it’s more than you’d think would queue for a phone in the rain, but still it’s fewer than in other reports. <\/p>\n
And it was exactly the number where the smart money said there wouldn’t be enough stock for everyone. <\/p>\n
Stay or go. Stay or go back to bed. I stayed because I got into so many conversations and I stayed because some people ahead of me gave up. <\/p>\n
And then this happened. Apple Birmingham and all Apple Stores around the world are opening early today but that means 08:00. Yet Apple Birmingham staff were out before 07:00. Before the store doors opened, they were working the queue, taking details, and creating reservations. Basically they kept my place in the queue for me while I got to wander off for breakfast. If I hadn’t seen them come out of the store I’d be really suspicious now. <\/p>\n
After they took my order, I looked around for the two people I’d be speaking with the most. One was deep in discussion with an Apple Store employee but the other, who’d held his umbrella over me, had vanished. <\/p>\n
I walked off through the rain, Birmingham New Street glistening with neon lights reflected in puddles and countless construction workers coming to the end of their night shift. <\/p>\n
At 09:30 I get to go back to the store and pick up my phone. <\/p>\n
And now someone else talked to me in this Tim Horton’s. They opened with “Are you a 09:30?” He’s a 09:15. And he’s off to have a nap in his car and that sounds so good. <\/p>\n
There is no justification for my coming here this morning and there would’ve been every justification for me to have turned over in bed. I can make a case for how this phone is needed for my work – I’m already commissioned to do a feature on it, come on, work with me here – but I tell you, I felt very silly walking across the city for a phone. And right at this moment I feel a bit silly for having to make this coffee last another two hours. <\/p>\n
But I don’t often get the chance or the time to be silly. And despite the silliness and the vast expense and the rain, there was an innocent pleasure in the queue. It was lovely and I can now report that the coffee is worth the 75p extra<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m writing to you from a Tim Horton’s in Birmingham city centre where I have just hesitated over buying a … Continue reading