Amaya Toman It wasn't that long ago that queues outside Apple Story were an integral part of the launch of new Apple products. Devoted fans, who did not hesitate to spend the night in front of the store, were a grateful subject for the media and a popular target for those for whom similar devotion to a brand or product was simply incomprehensible. With the growing popularity of online ordering and home delivery (along with measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic), queues outside apple stores are slowly but surely becoming a thing of the past. In today's part of the series on the history of Apple, we recall what it was like to start selling the very first iPhone.
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The first iPhone went on sale in the United States on June 29, 2007. Despite facing considerable skepticism from a number of quarters following its introduction, there were a large number of those who were simply excited about Apple's first smartphone. The long queues that began to form in front of the Apple Story before the launch of the first iPhone became an attractive topic for journalists, and their photos and videos soon went around the world. While in the 2001s, Apple could not boast of the number of visitors to its branches (or Apple corners in the premises of other retailers - the first Apple Store was opened only in 2007), in XNUMX everything was already different. At the time of the introduction of the first iPhone, the number of Apple Store branches in different countries had already begun to grow comfortably, and people went to them not only to buy, but also to use service services or simply to enjoy looking at various Apple products.
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Flying around the world with Apple On the day when the first iPhone went on sale, the media not only in the United States began to report on long queues of eager buyers, which began to form in front of a number of retail stores of the Apple brand. News sites brought statements from die-hard Apple supporters who did not hesitate to confide in the camera that they have been waiting in line for the iPhone for more than a day. PEOPLE brought their own folding chairs, mats, sleeping bags and tents in front of Apple stores. They described the atmosphere as friendly and social.
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Interest in the first iPhone was really massive, and Apple limited the number of smartphones that one customer could buy to just two. AT&T only issued one single device to one person. It probably goes without saying that these measures contributed significantly to increasing interest in Apple's first smartphone. As we mentioned at the beginning of the article, not everyone shared the boundless enthusiasm for the new iPhone. There were a number of those predicting the iPhone would suffer a similar fate to the Bandai Pippin console, the QuickTake digital camera, the Newton Message Pad PDA, or even the planned chain of restaurants.
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Waiting in lines was by no means annoying for most customers - some took it as a sport, others as a privilege, an opportunity to show that they have an iPhone, for others it was an opportunity to socialize with like-minded individuals. The CNN server at the time carried a comprehensive report in which it described perfectly equipped customers waiting in front of the Apple Store. One of those waiting, Melanie Rivera, willingly described to reporters how people try to make each other's wait more pleasant despite the occasional rain. Some did not hesitate to trade their places in the queue, others actively took up the organization of an improvised waiting list system. People had pizza and other snacks brought to them in line, some even had grandiose plans connected to the purchase of the first iPhone.
CNN reporters interviewed a man outside the Apple Store on 5th Avenue who was going to propose to his girlfriend and give her a new iPhone on the occasion. In some places, however, there were also those waiting in the queue who had no plans to buy a new smartphone at all. They used the media frenzy to make their intentions more visible. An example can be a group of activists in SoHo who stood in line with banners promoting humanitarian aid for Africa. Everyone benefited from the hype surrounding the sale of the new iPhone, from people who filmed the waiting crowd and then posted the footage on YouTube, or perhaps food vendors who did not hesitate to move their stands closer to the queue for strategic reasons. The mania surrounding the launch of sales of the first iPhone passed us by - the first iPhone that officially went on sale in the Czech Republic was the 3G model. How do you remember the start of its sale?
