Live! From the Fifth Ave. iPhone line
I bought an iPhone for myself on Friday. This was a live blog to chronicle the event, posted in reverse order with the most recent items on top.
11:47 a.m. The iPhone just beeped. I’m in. Entered my e-mail address and the sync is in progress. That ends this blog.
POSTSCRIPT from Brooklyn: I counted roughly 230 people in line as I left the Apple Store, none of whom were among the 150 who were queued up at 5:00 a.m. (a woman coming in as I left said she’d been waiting since 7:30). I put the total count at somewhere between 380 and 500. It was a friendly, patient crowd — the usual New York mix of ages and colors — although by the time I left the people at the end were wondering how long they would stick with it if it kept moving so slowly.
Meanwhile, I still don’t have a working iPhone. The endless barber shop in iTunes has been replaced with an error message: good old unknown error (-9838). I gather from comments below and from reports here and here that Apple’s activation servers have crashed. Last year the server problems were on AT&T’s end.
10:00 a.m. On the advice of Nicki, a savvy Apple rep who seems to know what she’s talking about, I’m headed home. I can do this as well from the comfort of my leafy backyard as I can standing here.
9:38 a.m. iPhone out and plugged in. The screen is telling me to plug it in, even though it already is. But the device shows up in iTunes and I’m getting the “accessing iTunes” barber pole. I’m told by the nearest Apple rep that it’s going to be a long wait — as much as 20 minutes. Apparently a lot of people are trying to do this at the same time. Not clear if the delay is Apple’s or AT&T’s.
9:31 a.m. Authorization successful. $215.67. I sign again. Give my zip code for the fourth or fifth time. Transaction competed.
9:29 a.m. I sign the EasyPay PC for the second time. When we’re done here, I’m supposed to find an orange T-shirt for “personalization.”
9:20 a.m. Back to the Genius Bar — next to Daniel as it turns out. Since the first phone was partially activated, they have to start again with a new one.
9:18 a.m. A breakthrough! Michael reports that the long wait was due to the first AT&T operative misspelling my name (an easy mistake), which created a conflict with my social security number. I’m being sent back to the line (but at the front, not the back).
9:10 a.m. After a long wait, Michael has reached someone at AT&T named Jeffrey. They want my Social Security number again. For the fourth time. Did I mention that I’m trying to do the simplest possible purchase: a new account, one line?
9:05 a.m. Update from Daniel’s crew. His transaction is taking as long as mine. Apparently he’s trying to buy eight iPhones at once. I wonder where the money is coming from…
9:00 a.m. It’s been a full hour now. AT&T has been doing a credit check for the past 15 minutes. These Apple people — mine is named Michael — have the patience of saints. I’m happy to have power and Wi-Fi.
8:44 a.m. We’ve had to get AT&T on the line, which means spelling out names and numbers, one character at a time, over and over. Katie Cotton, Steve Jobs’ personal PR maven, stops by to commiserate.
8:24 a.m. I’m a problem case. They’ve moved me to a separate table for special handling.
8:14 a.m. Daniel shows up. The box of apples was the last straw, but he’d pushed the security guys to the edge. He finally had to get escorted in by the NYPD. They’re a little friendlier than whomever Apple hired to do security. He’s trying to buy three phones, one for himself, one for John McCain and one for Barack Obama. We’ll have to see how that worked out.
8:11 a.m. My credit card isn’t swiping. They’re taking my information manually. Other people seem to be moving through at the rate of one every 10 minutes.
8:09 a.m. The EasyPay is having “network problems.” Someone gets another unit. Still waiting.
8:06 a.m. The roar from the Apple staff shouting and clapping is disorienting as we walk down the big circular staircase. (See video here.) We’re directed to the long table that usually houses the genius bar. I hand over my credit card and photo ID. A staffer pulls out a black box with an 8GB iPhone 3G and begins working with his EasyPay Pocket PC. It’s the start of what turns out to be a long, difficult process.
8:00 a.m. An unpleasant incident just as the doors open. Daniel Bowman Simon, organizer of TheWhoFarm group that has been here for a week, rushes to the door with a laptop, an Amerian flag and a box of apples. He’s grabbed by a security guard, who wrestles with him and then drags him off toward 58th Street. (See video here.) Everybody — the press, the Apple staff, the WhoFarmers, the people at the front of the line — is a little stunned. But the doors are open and, hesitantly at first, we trudge in.
7:45 a.m. Running low on battery. May have to pick this up after the event.
7:40 a.m. Getting closer. TV cameras everywhere you turn. CBS Early Show shows up with a team of five or six to get a shot of Greg Price, the talent, walking through the crowd. TheWhoFarm is trying — so far in vain — to pull together a press conference to publicize their online petition to turn the White House lawn into an organic farm. Harry Smith from CBS shows up in heavy pancake make up flashing a white iPhone 3G, 25 minutes before the doors open.
7:05 a.m. Greg Packer, 44, the retired highway maintenance worker who had his 15 minutes of fame in 2007 when he headed the Fifth Ave. iPhone line, (his wait: 4 days, 13 hours) has showed up in a Bon Jovi shirt. He’s still using his original iPhone, which except for some visible wear on the edges seems none the worse for wear.
7:00 a.m. The barricades are up, creating a zig-zag on Fifth Ave., and the line has moved up to fill it.
6:50 a.m. Ron Johnson, Apple’s vice president for retail, shows up. He’s whisked into the store by PR, who explain that he’s on a tight schedule and doesn’t have time to chat.
6:45 a.m. Apple employees in blue and orange t-shirts have broken out a few boxes of Smart water, preparing to hydrate the crowd, should things get hot.
6:30 a.m. The barricades are being moved into place and hooked together. The line has shifted 50 feet closer to the entrance. Much confusion as word moves down the queue. A surly looking guy in a black shirt and jeans has fallen asleep around position 11 and will not be moved. “I’m not here to buy an iPhone,” he tells everyone who asks him to move. “I just want to sleep.”
6:15 a.m. Things are starting to heat up. A dozen big guys with blue Squad Security shirts have gathered menancingly outside the metal barriers. They are threatening to move TheWhoFarm people who have been camped out here for a week and have collected a week’s worth of detritus (chairs, blankets, boxes of apples, a solar collector). The press have started to move in as well. Four satellite trucks from the networks have parked on 58th Street, their masts looming 30 or 40 feet high. Camera men with sound guys tethered to them roam up and down the line, grabbing sound bites. Every once in a while someone drives by and shouts an insult, like “get a life!”
6:09 a.m. Meet a pair of French graphic designers from Marseille who have been hanging out near the front of the line hoping to pick up a second-hand iPhone or two on the cheap. Very cheap. Clement Niviere, 20, in tight red pants, wears a hand-lettered sign on his chest that reads: “I could trade my red pants with your old iPhone (really.)” His copain, Jonas Lebesgue, also 20, wears a sign that reads “KEEP your new one, GIVE the old one.” Have they had any takers? “For the moment, no,” says Clement.
5:30 a.m. The Apple employees in front confirm what I’ve been hearing: that there were more people earlier in the night but they left when they were told they had to sign a two-year contract with AT&T in order to buy an iPhone 3G today. “We’ve been going through every couple of hours,” one tells me. “A few people left every time.”
5:18 a.m. I’m at Madison and 58th, a block away from the store, talking to the guy who’s currently the last man in line, No. 150. His name is Jason and he’d prefer to leave his last name out of it. He’s 26, from Kennebunk, ME, and he moved to New York City a few months ago to take a job at Lehman Bros., the big investment bank. In his pocket he’s carrying his first iPhone, which he bought on June 30, 2007, the day after the phones first went on sale. He’ll buy a new one today and sell his old one on Craigslist.
5:10 a.m. The Apple (AAPL) store shines like ship in the dark as I approach from the Plaza Hotel subway stop. The doors are blocked off (no bathrooms or free Wi-Fi!) and blue-shirted employees stand guard at the entrance. There are people queued up behind TheWhoFarm, but I can’t see how many.
4:45 a.m. Thinking about the report in the Wall St. Journal that the Justice Dept. has decided not to press criminal charges against Apple in the options backdating case and wondering why it came out yesterday. Nobody from the D.O.J. spoke on the record. Steve Jobs wasn’t quoted and neither was his lawyer. The source seemed to be the lawyers for Nancy Heinen and Fred Anderson, the two Apple execs who were thrown under the bus, to use the late Fake Steve Jobs’ expression. She’s off the hook now, free and clear. She must be happy she decided to fight the S.E.C. He’s probably asking himself why he caved. And mourning the $150,000 fine and $3.5 million in gains he coughed up to settle the charges.
4:30 a.m. Made a cup and drank it fast, out the door by quarter past. Caught the N train at Union St. in Brooklyn. Car full of sleeping construction workers. No sign that anyone is headed where I am. It’s not like going to a ballgame in a subway full of Yankee caps.
iPhone logic board
3:00 a.m. Up early to shower and stuff. Clearing out my e-mail. Happy to see that the flood of messages from PR firms hawking iPhone apps has slowed to a trickle and we’re back the usual krill I swim through every morning, hoping for enough protein to make it through the day. The Times is talking about rescuing Fannie Mae. Salon says Jesse Helms is not dead. A dying Thai hieress wants my help transferring $12 million to the U.S. Here’s something interesting: iFixIt has sent me a better picture of the iPhone 3G logic board. THAT I can use.
My iPhone shopping experience took 2 hours. Less then 2 hour wait at local mall, 4th inline, out of the store with new iPhone in 15 min at 8:15am.
This is a little out of hand in my view. To write a piece like this is pretty sad and really makes you look kind of childish about this device. Its nothing very inventive about it, its just a different way of putting it together in a sense. I will be sticking with an LG or Samsung and maybe you could do a great big piece on one of those. Show everyone how cool I am with my new cellphone, and hey check out the cool white headphones that came with it.
I *knew* those farm people were freaks! lock them up already.
Apple totally failed with this rollout. MobileMe has down for 36hrs, Itunes failed to activate and crashed etc. What a mess and me being an enterprise customer is supposed to be wowed by all this?
Apple needs to eliminate the Ituned intregration as I could care less about buying media (or allow our users to do so) Blackberry has used OTA activation for the past 2 years and you never see issues likes this.
Any RIM outage in the past pales in comparion to this crock. I hope the media jumps down Apple’s throat as much as RIM’s but I doubt .. it’ll be spin to “OMG look how popular iphone is”
“People…there are some other serious issues to worry about than getting this iPhone. Oil prices, mortgage issues, the world economy is tumbling. Save your money for the rainy day in the future.”
If you are not spending. You’re not helping economy! These people are helping economy by spending money! why you sit here complaining they could have done something useful! they are and you’re not! Reading is not help!
Wow these twenty something trustafarians have so much time on their hands & don’t have to worry about ‘grown up’ type expenses (rent, fuel, groceries, taxes) that they can stand out on line for hours waiting for phone. This is deliberate overhype by the media and these twentysomething vapid idiots like sheep answer the call.
I only have a Tmobile Dash from 2007 and get this — don’t even own an IPOD only a Zune & Creative Zen. Will I be laughed at by these idiots who live such an exciting life that they can whine & complain about the phone not being activated when they want.
Too many cry babies about iPhone. You do not want, then do not buy. Pathetic is going through the trouble to post a comment about something you do not care about. It’s okay to be jealous, Ted and those a like. Let me guess what is next, peeing while standing will be bad? What a little girl.
Stood in line at an ATT store. They activated 6 people in an hour and announced that they were out of 16g black iphones. He also wouldn’t tell us what the stock that was left was…
we asked if he knew
he said “yes”
Can you tell us?
“no”
Why?
“Company policy”
I’ll hold off and go to an Apple store next week.
Just left Arlington, VA (outside DC) store. Decided I’ll buy my two tomorrow, like last year, when I just walked right up to the cashier and easily activated at home. [But I am a bit inpatient as I've gone without my iphone since March when it was stolen from Dullus airport....] There must be more than 80 people out there. Hung around in Starbuck’s sipping my Frapuccino, watching the line not move. Still-patient customers being told the server is backed up.
Whether you love, hate, or just don’t care about Apple products, I think you have to be fascinated by the sheer number and diversity of people that do, no? How may times has Coca-Cola, GM, Honda, Blackberry, Kellogg’s, Citigroup…(you get the idea) managed to get sustained, front page, and overwhelming positive, coverage of a product offering? Apple=Amazing
AT&T makes revenues of millions of dollars.. im pretty sure they dont lose sleep over a couple people who dont care for there service
The iPhone 2.0 software is now available for download (as of 5 min ago).
WOW, ALL THIS FOR A PHONE - DO THESE PEOPLE HAVE JOBS OR BETTER YET PURPOSE IN LIFE? THESE GROUPIES ALL NEED A GOOD DOSE OF SUZIE ORMAN!
I already own an iPhone. Yesterday I found a link on TUAW.com to download the 2.0 update. I hooked up my phone, clicked on Check for Updates in iTunes while holding down the Option key, pointed it to the download and was up and running in about 20 minutes. Just have to say, I love it. I downloaded some free applications for testing purposes and everything worked flawlessly.
great report. very funny. granted, i wouldnt wait in line for a new phone but i think it’s kind of cool that such a little device can generate so much madness.
Is this what the human race has reduced themselves to? Waiting in line for a product and chronicling the “event” by the minutes?
If half of these sheeple spent the same energy on something useful… what a different world we’d live in.
Alas, we choose to do little more than consume, consume, consume…
Waited 1 hour 20 minutes to get into the ATT store. all but 3 of their computers crashed and they couldn’t activate me. still trying, but its not working.
I’m happy you are so excited about the iPhone. But if you only knew what a horrendous time Apple is having right now with the Mobileme service, which was supposed to launch July 9. It’s now July 11. And while the service caters to people with iPhones, it’s Mac users like me who have Mac e-mail addresses and Mac Web sites from dot Mac dot com who are feeling the hit because we can’t access any of it.
i am not satisfied with AT&T service. it stops me from buying an Iphone.
Upgrade my 1st generation iPhone to the new 2.0 software.
My phone is completely trashed. NO SERVICE and LOST ALL MY DATA!!! The phone only displays “Make emergency call”.
AT&T says iTunes is overloaded and the phone won’t activate. Try again whenever.
I’m very upset! This is absolutely unacceptable! Better to stay with Blackberry.
I smell CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT.
People…there are some other serious issues to worry about than getting this iPhone. Oil prices, mortgage issues, the world economy is tumbling. Save your money for the rainy day in the future.
Hi Hi,, this is funny man…
thanks for updating all of us..
Wish u all the best with ur iphone
iTunes delay is Apples problem, not AT&T…Evidentally launching a product in 24 countries generates a bit of web server traffic.
AT&T is a joke.., they lost me as a customer six months ago. If Apple stays with AT&T.., I’m “not” buying.. Mike O’Brien Butte, Montana
I’m just trying to update my old iphone to 2.0 and I’m getting that barbershop bar too…it’s extremely frustrating, especially when you rely on the dang thing for all forms of communication! You would think Apple and AT&T would be better prepared for this.
Did you travel back in time with the new iPhone? One update is from 9:29am, the next is from 9:31am, and the last one is from 9:28am… Saweeet.
There’s an interesting article about the iPhone’s Chinese origins at The Relevant Elephant:
http://www.therelevantelephant.com/blog/entry/made_in_china_introduction
“Ripping off existing customers?” It is just like any other phone. If your contract is not up for renewal - you pay full price.
I have a great feeling that “i” in iPhone stands for “idiot’s”…
I’m at work here and can say I’m on the edge of my seat over this. Can you tell me, are there any rocks on the ground there? What are they doing? Don’t keep us in suspense…
AT&T is ripping off the existing customers… $499 for 16gigs.. they dont care if they loose old customers… they want new customers….
Can a Brazilian guy buy one? That´s my question!
I don’t much care about this iPhone, but the play by play reporting is great. Love the added photo’s. Waiting to refresh my page for the next report. Can we take bets on when you will finally get your iPhone? I’m going with, “it’s in the mail”.
I couldn’t get my son to go to the Apple store in New York. He’s a bit cell phone challenged at the moment. It turns out that even cheap phones don’t go through the laundry well and teen aged girls can be exceptionally demanding when they have constant texting access. It seems as if the cell phone has shifted the power in the teen aged social scene. His generation doesn’t use their cell phones the way I do and it’s clearly changing how the socialize. Advance planning is discarted in favor of connectedness and opportunism. I consider myself fairly high tec, but my son is ahead of me. However, he still choosed to leave the thing at home some of the time, on purpose. It will kill him when he realizes he missed a protest, which are pretty uncommon down here. Give our best to the Who Farm People.
you could buy me a new iPhone for coming to your defense.
I have had three I phones and each one would break. I will never buy one again its a waste of time and money.
People are so stupid. Why in the world would you wait in line for something you can get in a day or two….sheep
Patrick, check the 6:50 am line - the journalist DOES say RON Johnson. Maybe Apple will come out with iGlasses for you,,,,,,
ex ped: In Patrick’s defense, I had a moment to read his comment and corrected it ASAP.
Hey Harry, how come there is no insurance in Florida whats the explaination for this ?
Thanks.
you had me at ‘Thai hieress wants my help transferring $12 million to the U.S. ‘
nice piece
Does anyone else feel slighted that Mac came out with this upgraded phone with little warning. I purchased my iPhone one month prior to the announcement not knowing about a new phone with higher Internet capabilities for significantly less money. Bad timing is what I was told by a Mac rep.
Waste of money people. Watch another one will be out in 6 months and another and another and you idiots will keep wasting your money on a stupid invention. Apple in general is overrated.
Of course, I’m waiting for tomorrow when I can just stroll in and get one without the fuss.
If you live in Florida don’t buy the iphone! You have no insurance protection. If you Don’t believe me just ask Apple about the phone. This is only in the state of Florida.
For such a veteran journalist of all things Apple I am very surprised you got the name of retail V.P. incorrect. It’s RON Johnson. Sheesh. Were you using an iPhone to type your entries? :)
Madness to be waiting outside a store for a silly phone.
I only hope that the writer is using Apple equipment to write this - it would further exhibit Apple’s terrible battery power problem - to run out after only 4 hours of periodic use and 15 mins before the store opens!
How sad some peoples self-esteem is so low they go through this a get a piece of plastic to parade around to people.
How sad. Like the drivers going by are saying “Get a life!”
Pathetic
NO! Say it ain’t so! Way to go PED! Great job reporting. Just like being there. …Your articles will never be the same after today.
Keep reporting a crowd estimate please. How many now? Great job. Love the photos. Thanks. Greg
You are doing a fantastic job! Grateful if you could please find out when will the iPhone 2.0 software update be with us
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Silicon Valley veterans like to joke that Steve Jobs must be surrounded by a reality distortion field; if you get too close to him, you start to believe what he's saying. Thanks to the success of the iPod, the launch of the iPhone and the renewed interest in the Mac, Apple has made believers out of millions of customers - and made a lot of investors rich. But Philip Elmer-DeWitt believes that an ounce of skepticism never hurts when writing about the company. He should know. He's been covering Apple - and watching Steve Jobs operate - since 1982, first for Time Magazine, then for Business 2.0, and now for Fortune.
Philip, how many different people did your reveal your Social Security Number (that government issued number for “tax purposes only”) to?