July 12th, 2008

I do believe, that in Palo Alto at least, Friday, July 10th 2008, shall forever more be known as iPhone day.

The lines at the Apple store have been a steady fixture since Wednesday night, and have been showing no sign of letup. Even with all of the talk about email not working properly, and the AT+T network not keeping up with the rate of activation people have been cueing up to get there iPhones. 

I won't deny it, I even tried to get one on friday night by going to the AT+T store instead of the Apple store, thinking that the crowds would all be at the Apple store. 

However, one glance around the inside of that store, and the look of harried exhaustion on the faces of the employees told me what had happened. Sure enough, they had run out of iPhones by mid -afternoon, and were suggesting to people that they return on Sunday when they might have more. (All of the units that they expected to receive on Saturday were probably spoken for already. They were evasive on that subject. )

In the above picture, you'll see what the line looked like at 8:30 p.m. on Saturday night! That's a full thirty Six hours after they started selling the phones. The line started inside the store and extended out and around the back of the building. The expectations here are that the lines will continue through Sunday evening. When was the last time you saw grown people behaving like this for something they want for themselves and not their children that wasn't either an essential commodity like food or gasoline, or an illegal substance?

All I can say is that I am very VERY happy that I own stock. Long live Saint Steve.