For fun, I decided to swing by my local AT&T store this morning to “trade up” from my current iPhone to the latest edition. When I drove by on the street I could see about 10-12 people standing in line. Not too bad, all things considered.
I pulled in to the parking lot and hopped out of the car. The sign on the door said the store opened at 9:00, but it was 9:05 and no one was inside yet. In fact there were two AT&T employees guarding the door.
I asked one of the employees if there were enough iPhones inside the store to satisfy the demand outside the store and one of the employees gave a very subtle back and forth shake of her head. The other employee, looking at what appeared to be very small crib notes, said that there were 7 phones inside. (As I said, maybe ten people in line.) But, says the employee, there are 20 expected to arrive via FedEx at around 10-10:30.
Not a problem for me, as I was really only thinking I’d get a new phone today if it wasn’t a royal pain in the butt, although I will be swinging by the store around 10:15-ish on the off chance that there’s one more phone than there are people standing in line. Could be, who knows…
One other small note. I’ve been to a couple of new product releases, including the initial release of the iPhone back in June of ’07, all of which were at Apple Stores. This being my first time to an AT&T store for a release, and after seeing the very cheery Apple employees at the earlier releases, AT&T employees look like they’re in the midst of a hostage situation…