The iPhone 3G won’t be available until a month from now, as most of us expected, but it was our duty to be prepared in case it was released today. Senior Editor Joe Brown, Wired photo wiz Jon Snyder, and yours truly spent a couple of hours observing the behavior of the Apple acolytes and the various personalities that gathered at the main store in San Francisco.
While we waited for the news to come down, this is what we saw:
About a third of the people in the store were journalists, and all of them (including us) were using the Apple iMac displays to check on the most important blogs. We tried to go on as many machines as possible and leave Wired.com open on the browsers of the iPhones.
If you thought the weird obsession with this product is confined to our borders, the heavy international flavor of the customers and journos will make you change your mind. We saw a group from France come in and buy half a dozen phones, and another girl noting sourly that she had to do it or else be ripped off with extra tariffs and the overall higher price tag in her native UK. The new price max that Jobs promised for the 3G version of the phone might finally change this unfair discrepancy.
We met some tech journalists from Sweden, who were particularly pumped with the news that the new iPhone will be simultaneously released in many different countries. They also were not pleased about the fact that it was the longest keynote ever. (Joe Brown: "This is not a keynote anymore. It's a PowerPoint presentation.")
Apple store managers don’t like to have their photo taken.
Apparently, the rule at all Apple stores is that they are not supposed to be in any pictures -- but we think it was because they were shy, more than anything. I swear, I saw a man at the Genius Bar suck in his cheeks and then go to a back room when he saw our camera. Maybe the rule is in there because Apple wants to enhance the store's fantasy of wide personal space and exploration, and don't want you to see the reality: there's always a guy staring at the back of your head.Towards the end of the keynote, four (somewhat large) security guards planted themselves near the entrance of the store, and we started to hear some whispers of a release. A couple of people asked for the iPhone 3G and were turned away with a hard stare. Robert Scoble, from FastCompany fame, came in with his entourage and asked for the iPhone 3G as well.
He was firmly rebuffed.Finally, I didn't really believe that the Apple culture was slowly seeping into the mainstream until I stepped inside this place today. At 10AM, on a Monday morning, the place was legitimately packed with n00bs who were eager to know more about the products. I saw two kids with their parents asking an Apple employee (nay, forcing the employee) to go over the SDK updates. At that age, I think
I was trying to retrieve a cup of grog from the old lady in the Monkey
Island PC game.
So now we wait a full month for the release of the next iPhone. Judging by the excitement of the crowds, it looks like the night of July 10th will be another all-nighter for the crew.
