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Comment by ergo98 | Hacker News Reader

It is pretty surprising that Apple hasn't been called on this cheap PR. Every person standing in line is being used as a stooge by Apple to get press, and the media always abides. This is the first article I've seen yet that points out this obvious exploitation of the Apple faithful.

It's positively archaic.

Just to be clear, as the article notes the people standing in line RESERVED a phone. They already have their spot. Apple makes them prove it by standing in line for 6 hours for the television cameras.

When the Motorola Droid was released, in comparison, I remember a lot of articles mocking the lack of lines. Yet somehow they sold 250,000 in the first week. It's kind of amazing what modern fulfillment processes can do, even if it doesn't lead to cult-like turnouts.

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Analysts are saying Apple may sell 1.5 million iPhones in the first week. A bit more challenging than 250,000. Anyway when it comes to lines these people made a choice. Apple offered to ship it to their door. They may have actually got it a day earlier if they opted for delivery instead. Even if you preferred local pickup Best Buy's pre-orders were fulfilled by appointment. So these people all had choices. For whatever reason they wanted to line-up in front of an Apple store for 6 hours because they absolutely had to have this thing on launch day. No sympathy from me. If Apple is using them for PR they are willing pawns.

Ok, first of all, that's only a factor of six, not the orders of magnitude you seem to be implying.

And I don't think you can lay this at the feet of the people standing in line unless they were informed when they made their choice that choosing an Apple store would involve five to ten hour queuing outdoors. I'm guessing Apple didn't say that in the order form, in which case the "choice" was one about which they were uninformed, perhaps deliberately so, and Apple remains largely at fault.

Isn't it always like this with Apple launches? I'm not saying it's justified, but I don't most people didn't know.

it was the same with Windows 95 fifteen years ago. Apple is the new MSFT.

Makes one miss the truly passionate product fans of days gone by:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajlTIMBbdTg&feature=PlayL...

Anyone know any studies on what makes people do this? How come a product (especially a particularly stupid one that's not much different than its analogues) gets so demanded before it comes out?

There should be something about this in the PR literature. After all it's each PR guys dream to create such a hype.

Oh, they're still here, (un)fortunately.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIEE4dU07G0

For mechanical hamsters of some sort.

The first article this time around... the same story came up with the 3G or whatever the last iPhone was.

They should create an app for that. Seriously.

The iPhone 4 uses a microsim instead of regular sim cards. It takes some time to replace and transfer data to the new one - the whole process takes 15min per person, thus mindlowinly slow lines.

That's not the point. The point is that Apple knows this and could schedule people in an efficient manor, not causing long lines.

Oh, certainly not defending it. The knew how many people were coming well ahead of time. I live in Portland, there's only one little Apple store for all of downtown and the eastside - it was a nightmare.

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