“I‘m not leaving without a gold one!” Tales from the iPhone 5S line

I am not a New Yorker; standing in lines make me want to start stabbing people. The last time I actually went to a for-real brick and mortar Apple Store to purchase a for-real Apple product (rather than ordering online like a sane person) was back in 2007 when I spent a whole day camped out waiting for a first-generation iPhone. That was a miserable experience and so was this morning’s wait for an iPhone 5S. But it wasn’t all bad, because I got to get up close and personal with the kind of people who want gold iPhones.

Apple didn’t provide Ars with advanced review hardware for either of the new iPhone models, so both Ars Senior Product Specialist Andrew Cunningham and I found ourselves in line at our respective Apple Stores on the morning of the iPhone 5S launch, waiting along with everyone else. Rather than kicking back and enjoying the new features, we’ll be digging in over the weekend in order to bring you some solid, Ars-style reviews at the beginning of next week.

Andrew had his own tribulation to endure to get his iPhone, but the process here in Houston was relatively straightforward. I arrived at Baybrook Mall a bit after 7:30am; early reports were that lines at Apple Stores across the country were pretty light, and I was hopeful that I wouldn’t be too far back—but alas, it was not to be. There were at least 100 people already queued up around the fountain in front of the Baybrook Apple Store.

The Apple Store employees were chipper—most had been there since 5:00am, and I was pleased to discover that there were plenty of iPhones 5Ss still left, in exactly the configuration I was seeking—black, 32GB, AT&T. The employees issued me a stamped ticket with my choice on it, guaranteeing me hardware, and I took up my place in line. The Cinnabon around the corner was already operating in high gear, and the mall smelled of sweet heart attacks and coffee; around us, elderly mall walkers orbited like wrinkly, vaguely disapproving satellites. We were on their turf, and they didn’t care for our technology or our whipper-snapper ways.

Quantities of non-black—er, non-Space Gray, sorry—were sharply limited. Apple Store employees canvassed the line, offering water and Starbucks coffee and answering questions; the available quantity of white and gold iPhone 5Ss was continually brought up.

The person in line behind me was engaged in a protracted phone battle with Verizon Wireless to modify her account in such a way that she could upgrade to a 5S. I didn’t pay much attention as she alternately yelled and pleaded with the Verizon phone representative, since I was trying to catch up on e-mail and make ironic tweets about standing in line at the Apple Store for a new iPhone. The clock struck eight, and the salesfolk did their usual disturbingly enthusiastic store opening/high-five routine; iPhone boomboxes were produced, and people began to be ushered into the store to collect their new phones.

The iPhone 5S line at the Apple Store in Baybrook Mall. Also, the very last picture taken with my trusty old iPhone 4.

Credit: Lee Hutchinson

Denial

The trouble started right when the person behind me got off the phone with Verizon. As an Apple employee came by to ask if anyone needed anything—they were really quite nice!—she asked how many gold iPhones were left.

“Oh, we only got five,” the employee replied. “They’re already gone.”

She uttered a flat “What?” that cut through the “My Chemical Romance” song on the nearest boombox like a lance, and heads snapped toward her all up and down the line; you could practically hear the click of eyeballs focusing. Something was about to Go Down.

The employee knew, too; she quickly offered to get the store manager, and the prospective gold-seeker agreed. A tall blue-shirted Apple person ambled over with a name badge identifying himself as the manager. He looked friendly, but tired. The question was repeated, this time with a menacingly rhetorical air: “How many gold iPhones do you have left?”

Anger

The customer reacted badly to being told a second time that there were none. “You have got to be kidding me,” she said. “That is unacceptable.”

I flashed briefly back to my long-gone retail days and felt a stab of sympathy for the manager. He explained that they received only a limited number of gold iPhones—mirroring the scarcity of white iPhone 4s a few years back in a move that no small number of media outlets are calling a deliberate psychological ploy, and things got worse.

“You need to get me a gold iPhone,” the customer told the manager. “I am waiting in line for one and I’m not leaving without one.” After being told that wasn’t possible, she shifted gears: “You need to call some other Apple store, then, and get them to hold one for me right now.”

Houston is the nation’s fourth-largest city; as such, we rate five Apple stores in and around the metro area. However, the manager quickly disabused her of finding a gold iPhone at another Apple store; supplies of the shiny-shiny were tightly allocated, and likely already completely gone.

She didn’t quite stomp her feet, but I could see the inner child straining to burst forth. Instead, though, she verbally escalated. Aside from the music—it had moved on to something I didn’t recognize because I’m 35 and fast approaching mall-walking age—her voice was the only sound to be heard.

Bargaining

“Well, you people better be able to get me one of those white iPhones, then. I’m not going to waste my morning in line for a black iPhone.” The manager asked what carrier she was using, and then shook his head again—there were no white Verizon iPhone 5Ss left, either. The manager let her know that her best bet, if she wanted an iPhone 5S today, would be to buy the one for which she was holding a ticket—a Space Gray model—and return it within fourteen days for another model.

“So you’re going to have gold iPhones soon, then?” she asked.

“It might not be for several weeks,” he replied. More verbal abuse followed.

Stupidity

She eventually sighed loudly and let the manager know that she would buy the phone for which she had the ticket. As he walked away, she dialed a friend on her existing phone—a white iPhone 4 or 4S—and quickly relayed a version of the events the whole line had just witnessed. However, in her version, the manager was clearly an idiot, and she was going to have to waste all of her morning to get a phone she didn’t even want.

Then, the bombshell. “I gotta have the gold one. I don’t care. I don’t waaaaaaaaant this stupid black iPhone!” she whined. “It’s gonna make people think I’m a lesbian!”

I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry, so I did what any sane person would do: I tweeted about it with abandon.

Acceptance

Over the next two hours, I heard more complaining up and down the line; the fellow a bit ahead of me was loudly angry that Apple didn’t have any unlocked iPhones for sale directly; when told that not only would he have to buy a locked iPhone but that his only color choice was Space Gray, he left the line, saying that he was going to Walmart instead, because he heard they had “tons” of gold iPhones. A few other folks followed him out the door.

I certainly don’t begrudge anyone for wanting the device they want with the options they want, but the angry gold-flavored entitlement was painful to watch. Supply-constrained product launches bring out the worst in people, and all the more so when the lines and the scarcity might be artificially imposed—or at least, when the people waiting in line think they might be. The collision between phones as devices and phones as fashion accessories has been profitable for the device manufactures, but it also brings out a lot of ugliness.