

IPhone 5: Customers in the Big Apple camp out 8 days early - pohungc
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/09/16/iphone-5-customers-in-the-big-apple-camp-out-8-days-early/

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jpxxx
Apple's got the tightest hardware, best performance, best sales channel,
widest distribution, widest manufacturing channel, best service, best support,
best third-party ecosystem, best carrier support, best -working- voice
assistant service, best customer satisfaction, highest re-up rates, highest
subscriber retention rates, highest ARPU, clearest UX, strongest developer
support, widest app selection, highest ASP, best margin, best packaging, best
pack-ins, most robust "cloud", deepest content library, widest content market
coverage, highest perceived status, strongest brand name, and the thickest
boot pressing into the necks of more carriers than any other smartphone line
in the entire world.

But all of this is going to be chalked up to "marketing" creating "sheeple"
who voluntarily line up for the slaughter.

~~~
te_chris
Most robust "cloud"? Really? You know their main competitor is google right?
The company that has been responsible for millions of people embracing the
cloud before apple even cared it existed?

~~~
jpxxx
Yes, really. I argue that iCloud is a more robust and coherent offering at
this point. It goes toe-to-toe with Android Backup when it comes to backing up
relevant user-state (like SMS history, a very valuable datatype), offers
desirable features like find-a-phone and remote wipe, offers unsexy but
fundamental functionality like Notes round-tripping, and offers ad-free IMAP
mailboxes that don't explode on contact with desktop clients.

iCloud still doesn't offer arbitrary file storage like Google Drive and its
photo story is inadequate and confusing. But it is competitive on the whole,
and Apple found some dogwhistle to blow that made "iCloud" a real thing for
extremely tech-uninvolved people. (I'm not sure if this was anything they
actually did on their part or if it was just coincident with the "cloud"
buzzword coming to mean "I, the user, won't lose my stuff if my phone/laptop
breaks")

Also, Android backup is not a freebie: the manufacturer needs to be playing by
OHA rules and staying in Google's good graces so that they can get access to
all those Google-backed goodies. And then of course there's carrier-cloud and
the vaporous S-Cloud and Asus cloud and all the third-party services and
and.... and...

Apple's put it together under one brand name and an ID you already have.

~~~
cageface
_I argue that iCloud is a more robust and coherent offering at this point._

Robust is highly debatable, but the big problem with iCloud is that it's
restricted to Apple devices only and is really only a benefit if you live
_entirely_ in the Apple ecosystem.

The last few iOS apps I've written for clients haven't used it because we need
to support Android and/or non-Mac desktop users as well.

~~~
micampe
_> the big problem with iCloud is that it's restricted to Apple devices only_

I am using iCloud contacts, calendar and mail on my Nexus 7. They are plain
standard CardDAV, CalDAV and IMAP.

To use Google contacts and calendar on any non-Android device you have to go
through an old version of Exchange ActiveSync, which is quite limited and
loses some information.

This is basically the only reason that made me move from Gmail to iCloud: it’s
easier to share the data across platforms. This is of course not true for
documents sharing in apps, for which I still mainly use Dropbox.

~~~
cageface
But that stuff isn't what makes it interesting. It's the support for arbitrary
backend structured storage, but few apps can afford to tie themselves to an
Apple-only solution.

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dexen
Back in the day, when my (central-european) country was under soviet rule,
people would queue and wait for hours to get essentials: from meat to toilet
paper. Today -- this.

Honestly, I can't comprehend -- either end of equation. Why is there shortage
of devices, and why are people waiting so stubbornly -- especially given
Apple's history of lowering prices a few months after launch.

~~~
evan_
The only time in recent memory that Apple lowered the price of an iPhone- or
any hardware- without releasing a new version was the first generation iPhone,
5+ years ago. It's very rare.

~~~
ihuman
And that was because it wasn't originally Carrier-Subsidized, if I remember
correctly.

------
josephlord
TL;DR - Publicity seekers/marketing opportunists not hard core Apple fans.

~~~
jrockway
The funny thing is how amazingly well this marketing works, especially in the
era of blogs.

I recently bought [http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-
Manipulator...](http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-
Manipulator/dp/159184553X), which talks about the fake news the author
manufactures to sell his clients' products.

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pacomerh
People lining up days earlier to get their iphones used to make me mad,
knowing that you can just pre-order it online, no hustle. Now I just see it
from a good perspective, these guys have their culture and want to be feel
part of it, that's the reason right? I don't think their life is that boring
that they have to do these things. It must be passion and excitement. Might
sound obvious to some of you, not to me, I have a hard time assimilating this
process.

------
linuxhansl
The pre-announcement of new hardware, the (what appears to be) artificial
scarcity during the first weeks or months remind me of nightclubs with
bouncers. No nightclub is cool without lines of folks in front of it, who want
to get in.

Personally I never watch a popular movie on the first weekend or stand in line
for _anything_ really (if I can avoid it). So from my viewpoint this looks
like insanity.

Whatever floats your boat. If camping out for 8 days to buy a phone makes you
happy... More power to you.

Edit: Spelling.

~~~
ghshephard
It's been many years (if ever) since Apple tried to create scarcity to sell
their phone. Every day that they are unable to sell a customer an iPhone
because they don't have inventory, is a potential lost sale, as someone just
buys a Galaxy S3, or decides to wait for the Lumia 920 - both of which are
acceptable substitutes for the iPhone 5. Once that customer buys a competitors
phone, they don't only lose out on the short term sale, they lose out on the
content follow-ons, and, perhaps even worse, they lose out on the upgrade sale
2 years from now when (in North America) that person's contract comes up and
they have to get a new phone.

Apple's inability to build enough iPhones is going to cost them Billions of
dollars of lost revenue. You can buy a lot of marketing for that kind of
money, particularly at Apple's margins.

So, no, there is no artificial scarcity at work here - just the sheer
challenges of trying to manufacture 10s of millions of phones over a short
period of time. This is not an easy thing to do.

------
thornofmight
Don't these people have jobs?

~~~
jws
Yes. Sitting in line for free publicity. It's worked for the first seven.
(Note to Fortune: you failed to count to seven correctly.)

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eboyer
yikes, did someone not tell these people about the pre-orders? they could of
gone on with their lives and got it the same day from the mailman.

~~~
xtdx
yikes, did someone not read the article?

~~~
njloof
Wait, these headlines on Hacker News link to stories?

>click<

Well, I'll be darned.

