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We are giving out water

economist.com

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Re: We are giving out water

#51

Post by stevenbedrick »

Well, personally, I agree with the article's interpretation of events... but: does anybody else see the irony inherent to The Economist, of all publications, complaining about something like this?

I mean, this is the free market at work, right? Nobody's forcing these people to queue for hours. Both Apple and its customers are making choices based on costs and benefits. Apple, on the one hand, apparently sees financial benefit to treating a certain segment of its customer base like crap. Those same customers have apparently decided that being treated shabbily is worth getting the new shiny a little bit sooner than their friends.

If that ain't capitalism, I don't know what is. Seems like it'd be right up The Economist's alley...

Re: We are giving out water

#52

Post by pyre »

phreanix wrote: post #34

People who reserved this item know from previous experience they were most likely going to wait in line for it. They knew . I'm not saying that Apple couldn't have handled this differently, but there is a value that was attached to this item by the people in line. The cost of time lost/waiting in line for hours was something factored in to the value they were expecting for their iphone. Some of the more pragmatic and…

  > People who reserved this item know from previous
  > experience they were most likely going to wait in
  > line for it.
I haven't followed previous launches, but were customers reserving their iPhones during this launches too? It seems really odd to me that as the author stated, Apple knew the number of people that had reserved their phone in advance. They can't claim that they "didn't know" how many people would turn up on launch day. They could easily have tried to design a way to better facilitate people getting their phones, or at the bare minimum tell people beforehand that they are expecting there to be long lines.

  > Did the horrible lines for the iPhone 2G affect
  > the sales of the 3G? The 3Gs, the iPad? It did,
  > positively.
The article states that all of the press that Apple gets from this is good for them, but bad for their customers. So I don't see how you are contradicting the article here.

Re: We are giving out water

#53

Post by colah »

Also, by forcing people to invest time like this, they build customer loyalty. The customers don't want to admit that they were wrong.

On the other hand, this could backfire if someone gets fed up. It only builds loyalty if the customers tolerate this abuse -- because then they need to explain to themselves why they did.

Re: We are giving out water

#54

Post by eru »

makmanalp wrote: post #39
eplanit wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: We are giving out water

#55

Post by pyre »

ghshephard wrote: post #23
jrockway wrote: post #11

Yeah. This is why I don't buy anything that I can't get from Amazon. Step 1: find product Step 2: click "2-day one click" Step 3: the product arrives at my house

Ironically, apple is actually one of the few companies out there that has licensed one click purchasing from Amazon. (everyone waiting in line, btw, could have chosen to just have their phone shipped to them)

  > (everyone waiting in line, btw, could have chosen
  > to just have their phone shipped to them)
True, but I think most of those people felt that they would just be able to walk in and pick it up since they had a reservation. Handing out reservations implies that Apple has set one aside, just for you. You just have to walk in and get it.

Re: We are giving out water

#56

Post by Tichy »

zackattack wrote: post #36
Tichy wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just trying to understand. I could understand if the queuing was fun, but as that doesn't seem to be the case? Yes, for 10 hours queuing, you get to be cooler than everybody else for 10 minutes, until the rest of the world has received their iPhones in the mail?

It has nothing to do with enjoyment in the moment. It has everything to do with validating their self-image/social identity.

Maybe it is the same thing as football fans (soccer) then? I could never relate to them, either. Although I admit it seems to work - they have fun, get drunk, make friends, travel. But it all seems fake in the end (they are not good at sports, just because their team is good at sports. Their friendships would probably not last if they left the "club").

Re: We are giving out water

#57

Post by eru »

ErrantX wrote: post #41
jolie wrote: post #2

Is it really, really so bad to wait a couple days or weeks longer to get your precious fucking iPhone? I hate queuing in general, but this is the kind of line-waiting that literally makes no sense at all to me.

> but this is the kind of line-waiting that literally makes no sense at all to me This is a cultural thing :) put a couple of us brits together and we will form a queue. And we will do it with minimal fuss and lots of solidarity. We are damned good at it - and very proud of that. (my "best queue" was 8 hours for a Leeds Festival ticket :))

East Germans were also quite good at queues. But they had to be.

Re: We are giving out water

#58

Post by eru »

Tichy wrote: post #8

Hm, if I was an iPhone developer I would try to create an app for that. Organizing the queuing, I mean. Could we come up with some self organizing numbering scheme (assuming the shop doesn't collaborate, and everybody in the queue already has an iPhone (pre-4), which seems reasonable)? A problem could be that people would forget to check in once they had their turn at the counter, so maybe it would have to be some ki…

How about selling your reservation?

Re: We are giving out water

#59

Post by jsz0 »

ergo98 wrote: post #6

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 s…

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.

Re: We are giving out water

#60

Post by jordanroher »

diego_moita wrote: post #49

I am surprised that nobody sees here a recipe for downfall : Apple is a very incompetent company when it comes to product massification. This is the most anti-Henry Ford strategy possible: overpriced premium products for a cult-like base of customers. They sell gadgets like Louis-Vuitton sells handbags and Prada sells shoes. And that's exactly the strategy they followed with the Mac and got them cornered in a niche.…

Exactly as long as it took Dell and Asus to sell a cheap MP3 player and eat the iPod's lunch. Uh, when did that happen?
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