June 29, 2007
iPhone madness recap
From far and wide, arch-geeks have converged on Apple stores across the US to wait out the final 24 hours of iPhone madness. Until very recently, one notable exception had been the San Francisco Apple store, but a brief check after lunch confirmed that a small number of iPhone loonies have begun to set up camp there as well.
In New York, the first iPhone camper was revealed to be none other than Greg Packer, a notorious attention hog known for waiting in line at product launches and celebrity events in hope of being quoted in the newspaper. In Palo Alto, the noted tech blogger Robert Scoble was the first in line, along with his son Patrick.
The serious business on the last day of life as we know it began with a town hall meeting at Apple headquarters, where Steve Jobs said that each Apple employee would receive a free 8GB iPhone by the end of July as a reward for their hard work, then proceeded to give a strategy update. A tipster told ARS Technica that Jobs compared Apple’s business model to a chair with two legs - the iPod and the Mac.
The third leg of the chair, Steve hopes, will be the iPhone business, which he hopes to grow into something as strong as the iPod. He added that he hopes for the fourth leg to become the Apple TV, but focus is on the iPhone for now.
The Apple boss also hinted that new iPods and Macs might be coming in the near future.
With all this hype, it’s hard to believe that Apple will have enough iPhones on hand on Friday to keep up with demand. Not to worry, though. Beginning at 9pm on Thursday, customers will be able to go to the Apple web site to make sure the phone is still in stock on their local Apple store.
Here is a roundup of our recent iPhone coverage, just in case there’s anyone left out there who hasn’t had enough. See you on the flip side.
