Friday, September 14, 2007
Me and my iPod touch: Christmas came on Sept 14th
Didn't think I'd be doing this today. Hmm, Steve Jobs said nine days ago that the iPod touch would be shipping "in a few weeks" and the online Apple Store estimates orders will ship on "September 28th" and I'm thinking that neither one of those sounds like much like "September 14th" but I'm not complaining :-)
Good luck finding one though, as each Apple Store is only getting in "a few" each day, and while they absolutely refuse to disclose the number itself or even a ballpark approximation of the number, I don't think they're getting more than ten or twenty of each model per day. They also appear to be under strict instructions to use the phrase "a few" to describe how many they received and how many they have left, and no other phrases.
After striking out with all of the Apple Stores in Los Angeles proper, I ended up having to hoof it all the way out to Pasadena to get mine, thanks to the fact that their shipment arrived a little later in the day (no they couldn't hold one for me, no they couldn't tell me precisely when they were arriving) and I managed to get there just after the shipment arrived. All the 16 GB models were already gone (or they didn't receive any, they wouldn't say which) which was fine because I wanted the 8 GB anyway. The guy in front of me was buying two of them. The arrival of the shipment was hush-hush enough that some of the employees behind the counter didn't even know it had arrived.
I'm not sure why Apple would trickle so few of them out there two weeks before it's supposed to ship. If they've simply having production issues, they'd have just waited til the 28th to begin shipping, hoping that they'd have more ready to go by then. No, I think this is more about building buzz for a product that most people (outside of the geekdom) don't really understand until it's explained to them. Everyone understood the iPhone, wanted the iPhone, stood in line for the iPhone, or sat home and pouted because they weren't eligible for the iPhone. And of course the iPhone had six months of free hype prior to its release. But the iPod touch has only existed publicly since last week, and it looks like Apple is leaking a few units early in order to build buzz by sending madmen like me all over town trying to get one, and then making a big deal out of it to everyone who will listen.
And, as always, I'm willing to play along.
Didn't think I'd be doing this today. Hmm, Steve Jobs said nine days ago that the iPod touch would be shipping "in a few weeks" and the online Apple Store estimates orders will ship on "September 28th" and I'm thinking that neither one of those sounds like much like "September 14th" but I'm not complaining :-)
Good luck finding one though, as each Apple Store is only getting in "a few" each day, and while they absolutely refuse to disclose the number itself or even a ballpark approximation of the number, I don't think they're getting more than ten or twenty of each model per day. They also appear to be under strict instructions to use the phrase "a few" to describe how many they received and how many they have left, and no other phrases.
After striking out with all of the Apple Stores in Los Angeles proper, I ended up having to hoof it all the way out to Pasadena to get mine, thanks to the fact that their shipment arrived a little later in the day (no they couldn't hold one for me, no they couldn't tell me precisely when they were arriving) and I managed to get there just after the shipment arrived. All the 16 GB models were already gone (or they didn't receive any, they wouldn't say which) which was fine because I wanted the 8 GB anyway. The guy in front of me was buying two of them. The arrival of the shipment was hush-hush enough that some of the employees behind the counter didn't even know it had arrived.
I'm not sure why Apple would trickle so few of them out there two weeks before it's supposed to ship. If they've simply having production issues, they'd have just waited til the 28th to begin shipping, hoping that they'd have more ready to go by then. No, I think this is more about building buzz for a product that most people (outside of the geekdom) don't really understand until it's explained to them. Everyone understood the iPhone, wanted the iPhone, stood in line for the iPhone, or sat home and pouted because they weren't eligible for the iPhone. And of course the iPhone had six months of free hype prior to its release. But the iPod touch has only existed publicly since last week, and it looks like Apple is leaking a few units early in order to build buzz by sending madmen like me all over town trying to get one, and then making a big deal out of it to everyone who will listen.
And, as always, I'm willing to play along.
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