Frisco fanboi frenzy on 'iPad Day' To bag yourself an iPad on its day of release, you either have to have planned ahead or know the best place to shop. I didn't and don't. Unless you've been trekking through the high-desert Pamir Mountains in southeast Tajikistan, you knew that Saturday was the day that Apple's long awaited "magical and revolutionary" iPad went …
Actually, I have been spending my time working and in classes, not out hiking, and I was not aware that today was iDay.
Frankly, did not care, either. Not that I hold any disdain for those who wish to wait in long lines for some new piece of hot kit. No, just not my cup-o-tea. Mind, I do not particularly care for on-holiday shopping either, like Black Friday and such. Although, if I decide I do want something -- like a SATA LightScribe DVD-RW for under $40 -- I know where the hidden registers are, so I am in and out of Worst Buy. (Interesting, another blue-shirt store.)
In any case, I am neither allured by, nor have any allusions to the effect of, the iPad. Other than so long as it is the Hottest Thing Out There(tm) and will not support Flash, perhaps we will start to see fewer and fewer shitty Flash-only or heavily-laden websites.
Paris, in and out on Black Friday.
I fully expected my commentard subscription money to go towards the magnificent Miss Bee's compensation package, not your Jobsian magical mystery tour shenanigans. Coat please.
Also, my local Best Buy had a pile of 20-30 iPads sitting behind the counter. When they asked if I wanted one... eh. No thanks. Nice lady didn't look surprised at all. Magical indeed.
The wife & I headed for D&S Produce (ds-produce.com) and picked up two dozen heirloom tomato plants so we can start our garden in a couple weeks ... If we decide we need an iPad (or other "look at me" bra/penis-enhancer/substitute), we'll get one on the used market for pennies on the dollar in a month or so, roughly when our tomatoes are starting to flower ...
Watching the local news (KTVU), it's nice to see Steve's still wandering around in downtown Palo Alto, though ... He's not as much of an ass in RealLife[tm] as his reality distortion field would have you believe from Apple's advertising ... Sometimes I wonder why he allows his marketing department to depict him in the way that they do. Sad, really.
Old nightclub trick. Slow 'em riiiight down, so everyone thinks there must be summat good inside, more people join the queue for a decent 'tsunami' effect, then finally a gorilla (bald head, shades, natch) lets you in and - a few quid down - you're faced with about 150 other suckers, a toilet that's flooding from last night, and a jukebox.
Shit, this ploy is international.
(Saw a similar effect in Moscow once, 25 years ago. My ex and I went to Moscow in February for a holiday...(Yeah, I know). Stood looking into the - then- 'Harrods-of-Red-Square' - GUM's camera shop window, amazed there was fuc*k-all there. Turned round to find a queue behind us!).
This is so when the fanbois next meet up at WWDC or a Trek Con, they can one up the others telling war stories of how they waited overnight to get their iPad, and it was horrifying the deprivations they went through - no more Red Bull?!?!?!, AT&T 3G clogged with the hundreds of fanbois tweeting about waiting on line, etc.
Just go to Shropshire.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article78084.ece *
(Methinks - any iPADS there I can get the cows to 'leave their Greenhouse-gas-unfriendly 'mark' on?)
Oh, 'pads'. Pats. My bad. Got it, already.
* Did find it a bit too fanboi when I read, in that distinguished rag - sharing the same stable as it does with the Thunderer - that "The two copies found without the distinctive covers which have already been previewed for the public were stuck together"
Is JKR soo attractive??
the same old "I'm not interested.. in fact so interested I read the article, got angry about it and then spent my time logging and composing a posting telling you how much I didn't care".
Have to say I had a similar experience when I bought my iphone, huge queue at O2 store, wandered to the other end of the shopping centre to Carphonewarehouse, only 2 people. If you're that bothered then being bothered enough to go round the stores makes sense.
>So what on Earth does the Register want an iPad for?
El Reg being a UK puiblication probably ends its fiscal year on 31st March, the author being based in SF maybe forgot this and realised he hadn't used up his budget. Suddenly realising the folly of this, ie, if you don't use your budget it gets cut, ran out as soon as possible to spend what was left of his budget and doctor the receipt to show a pre-April date in the hope that the bean counters don't notice.
"When you're alone and life is making you lonely, You can always go - downtown"
You see the whole point of going downtown is to be with people, queuing up would seem to accomplish that. Personally, I don't see how standing about among a bunch of people you don't know with the ultimate goal of buying a whatsit thistime magically makes loneliness go away especially when it's a device to assist in melting away the rest of reality, but there you go. On the other hand if you're an impatient antisocial freak trying to avoid the throng you can hit the mall and be fishing by noon... who knew.
Oh the clouds are clearing, time to get my antisocial freak on and drown some worms. Ta.
In the Post Office, in the supermarket, they queue up for concert tickets, nightclubs, pubs.
They queued up for the Wii and for the Xbox 360.
Usually it's because there's something they want (or need) that they either cannot or do not want to wait for.
Sony would have loved for them to do it for the PS3. Microsoft tried to engineer it with Windows 95 and again with Windows 7 - unfortunately for them people stayed away in droves.
Yes, you can often obtain these items by going elsewhere or waiting for the queues to die down, but you risk missing the concert or waiting for months for something to come back into stock.
I suspect you to be an alien who does not understand our society. Come on, own up.
You poor terrified Apple-haters!
You crack me up!
LOOK at you all!
hahahahha classic!
The beauty is that there is NOTHING you can do to stop the iPad coming to dominate mobile computing!
I am going to enjoy every whiney whingey little squirm you short-sighted numpties are going to make until you give up, deny anything you ever posted ANTI-iPad and buy one yourself.
LOOK at yourselves - hilarious!
"The beauty is that there is NOTHING you can do to stop the iPad coming to dominate mobile computing!"
You've massively underestimated the sheer terror, courage and (bugle-blowing) power of the Salvation Army (shops). MWAHAHAHAHA!!!!
iPad? I bet you'll see one or two in them next week...
(Quote) Emma Chizzit: "Oh, here's a shilling. What does it actually DO?"
(Icon, natch)
I'm near bald. Not funny. Hate that bit at the hairdressers when they wave a hand-held mirror to see if I like it*, and I can't tell the difference between the mirror or my bonce.
OK, yes it was. Funny.
Once a mate of mine had to share an hotel room with a bloke who sported a 'syrup'** . Goddammit, after washing it, he hung it on the end of the bed to dry........
Now, ain't that taking the biscuit..
* Try "Nah. Put it back". See what they say...
** For our more westerly cousins who've only been freed from the slavery of tea-drinking since 1776, 'Syrup' == 'Syrup of Fig' == 'wig'
...even builders and scaffolders have iPhones. And I don't think I've even seen another MP3 player apart from iPods.
I think the iPad will be a huge success - it's ideal for non-techies who want the interweb - but can't be bothered with a normal PC/laptop - and that includes Macs.
And BTW - I don't own anything made by Apple - just thought I'd point out that your statement doesn't ring true.
Anyway - time will tell.
there is a funny post on the iPad mania in an austrain newspaper: http://derstandard.at/1269448624253/Geek-Chic-Killer-App-fuer-das-iPad-Ein-Star-Trek-Logbuch?_seite=3&sap=2#forumstart
the english translation can be found here: http://www.ikangai.com/blog/uncategorized/the-ipad-a-tool-for-the-mating-season
I think the whole "frenzy" over the iPad is to have something to make a frenzy about, in other words, the iPad itself is incidental. You'd think we'd get to the unboxing or actually using the thing, but nope, a sojourn about going store to store to get one, and there weren't that many people vying in the first place. And I guarantee by next week anyone who wants one will be able to get it. I seriously don't understand the fascination with Apple's things, no one I know personally cares or is even interested in the iPad, yet even the mainstream media has been fanning the hype for what little results they could get.
the antagonism ? I never get that over a product ... surely its up to the individual to buy or not
who gives a monkeys what the brand is ?
and who gives a royal f... about whether one has an iphone/ipad/nokia/duhdah/whatever ?
and the antis are as bad as the pro apple/brand/bmw/walkers (put any brand in there)
I heard anti apple, pro apple, anti bmw, pro bmw, the labelling of the mini-ipad guy
what the hell is all this , any REALLY interesting comments ?
For sure this article show, apple or no apple, that consumerism is a sad thing.
People getting their tents out the night before to buy an entertainent devices ... I suppose Millet's probably gets better sales for pavement camping equipment , since going to a mountain does not provide internet connectivity :D
... have a iife?
you know, wives, girlfriends? - hmm, probably not ;)
Probably one of The Reg's more pointless stories - "I drove here, didn't like the queue, so I drove there and didn't like the queue either, finally, I drove over there and there was no queue"
Outstanding journalism!
I enjoy technology, very much in fact. Try to keep abreast and all that. However I do like to get out in the sunlight now and then, smell the flowers and so on. Phrases like "get a life" come to mind, regardless of which obsession we are talking about. Macbois are like any other cultists, no more no less.
What a truly sad fanboi our journalist is. Living equidistant to two iTemples he goes to the 'downtown' one first, presumably to maximise the chance of being observed waving his status symbol in the air as he leaves. Only after the lines prove intolerable does he proceed to the quiet backwater store that any male of the species in possession of a full set of three in his underpants would go to first. Not that a red blooded straight thinking homo sapiens would ever need to go to an apple store y'understand. I don't mind betting that mini you repeatedly mention is no such thing but in fact a lump of Bavarian fashion tax? A vehicle oh so big on the outside and oh so small on the inside, a vehicle with all the point to it of tits on a fish.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
