Here is a Apple iPhone 4 launch day story from Fone Arena reader Neha from London. The above photo is a scene at an O2 Store in Brighton . People are crazy about Apple products in USA where Apple does majority of it’s business. But it’s interesting to see what Apple is doing across the seas in UK. Japan should be much more interesting !
After I got free from the usual day’s madness, I looked at the time and it was 5:30, and I thought to myself “hmmm, why not go try my luck at the apple store?”
I went to the Regent Street Apple Store, and was amazed by what I saw there!
I have not seen so many Apple freaks in ONE LINE! There were queues all along in sections, so that none of the shops get disturbed. I have got to admit, I probably saw thousands of fans queued up to buy the iPhone 4 launched today. To my surprise, none of the fans looked agitated or stressed, it looked more like Hyde Park to me than Regent Street. I wondered why, and that’s when i saw, these fans were all getting a bottle of water each every hour. I’ve got to give that to apple, they not only think of their sales and after sales, they THINK for their fans.
But not everything was going smooth. I didn’t queue up but i went inside the store to look around and see what’s happening. I spoke to a team member, and she said how low they are on stock but they didn’t want to tell the fans and upset them. Instead, they were giving them a “chit” which mentioned what time they can come the next day and collect the iPhone subject to availability. I could see some were getting restless, while the other prospects were playing with the laid out iPhone pieces till the battery died off! I waited for a while to get my hands on one, and when i got to it, it died on me too. So i put it on charge and waited to see what difference i find. And i did.
The new iPhone is more “metally”, it doesn’t have the plastic feel like the previous ones. It’s not a pretty gadget to hold anymore, it’s for business as well, atleast that’s what it reflects. The body is richer and the camera is sweet. And it has a flash that works pretty well! It’s not very curvy this time, which makes the look of the phone different. The display is WAY BETTER, it’s very evident.
There was a separate line for contract buyers and sim-free buyers, which made things easier. Even though people had started to line up 24 hrs before the actually launch time at 8 am, at 9pm when the doors were closing is when i left the store, there were hundreds of people trying to becomes owners of this revolution created by Apple.
Whatever said and done, no matter what the critics say or make us believe, the iPhone 4 has turned people’s priority around, and I saw that today.