Lines Of Communication

Before we get into today's post I must put out a disclaimer: I don't have an iPhone and have no real desire to get one. First off, I have been led to believe they are rather expensive and despite all that money no one I know who has one seems all that pleased with it. Mostly it seems that, like every phone, they are only as good as the service provider you are working with and even if you have great service they still have several issues their users must deal with. Of course, most of these complaints are probably due to the fact that nothing gets people to complain faster than their cell phones. (Seriously, it doesn't matter what kind of phone you give someone, they will hate something about it within a few hours.) So, I'm willing to grant you that if someone were to give me one I would probably use various features of the iPhone, but currently they don't appeal to me enough to run out and buy one. And I certainly don't see the point in sleeping out all night outside of a store to be the first person in line to buy them. I never understood what those people were thinking and that was before I learned a very important fact this afternoon - they don't even have to do it.

I always assumed those people were sleeping outside their local Apple store the night before the latest iPhone was released out a necessity. The company only made so many, they were on a first-come, first serve basis and if you didn't sleep outside to get the first one the back-orders would be so immense you may not be able to get your iPhone for months, at which point they would be obsolete. It was like a Black Friday midnight sale on crack - buy it now or lose the savings forever. Turns out that is not the case. Today someone was bragging about their new iPhone and when I asked if they had slept outside to get it they said there was no need because they had simply pre-ordered the phone and had it delivered to their door. This blew my mind. You mean to tell me those people are sleeping on the sidewalk, desperate to pay hundreds of dollars for a phone which will be out-of-date at this time next year, are doing so just because they are too cheap to pay for shipping? I love to go camping as much as the next guy, but this seems like stretching reasons for it to their breaking point.

So, if people aren't sleeping on sidewalks just to be able to brag to co-workers, why are they doing it? I can only assume people are so quick to do an activity which they don't have to for a much more basic human reason - to feel like part of a community. Nothing is more disheartening than trying to tell a story about your favorite past-time to a person who doesn't also do that activity because you can just see the scroll behind their eyes repeating the message: "I don't care. Stop talking." (Believe me, I have both given this look and seen it while trying to tell a golf story.) So, it doesn't matter what a person's hobby may be, they are always going to be desperate to meet another person who is into that same thing. That need to feel part of something is exactly why places like message boards exists and this line was basically an iPhone chatroom come to life. I bet some of these people couldn't wait to get into line because they knew they could geek out about a new iPhone and not only would the person next to them actually be listening, but they may be even more excited than the person talking. There probably haven't been this many geek connections made at one time since people started sleeping out to see "The Phantom Menace".

All that being said, I'm not sure bonding with strangers would get me to pretend to be homeless for the night. However, at the end of the day people have the right to do whatever they want with their free time and as long as their lines don't interfere with the businesses around the store than there is nothing stopping Apple from letting this happen every time they release a new product. They probably enjoy the publicity. Still, I can't help but think that this seems like a lot of inconvenience just to not have to wait a couple extra hours to pick up a phone. (Again, this probably goes back to the fact I don't buy the newest gadgets and my new phone experience often consists of me typing in phone numbers of people I haven't talked to in years but keep their numbers just so I know not to answer should they inexplicably call me. Hence, I never really 'enjoy' the new cell phone experience.) Wouldn't it just be easier for someone to organize a hang-out the next afternoon where everyone with a new iPhone could gather and pretend to be impressed by each other's phones, since that is all these people really want? Hopefully, next year when the iPhone 6 is being released someone thinks to bring this idea up to all the other people in line.