“Not eight days after Apple’s new flagship store was unveiled, Stevie J.’s fantastical glass elevator began acting a bit wonky, first opening and shutting its doors, then finally sealing in its passengers on the upper level,” Ryan Block reports for Engadget. “Apple store employees worked their hardest to release the bunch, but eventually the NYPD had to be called; the elevator’s hydraulic system had to be drained, and the confined group was let out in the store’s bowels (i.e. lower level).”
Full article with a photo of group stuck in the elevator here.
More pictures directly from the source: http://ranex.blogspot.com/2006/05/stuck-at-apple.html
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Judge Bork” and “MPC Guy” for the heads up.]
According to Block’s report, for their trouble, the freed customers were given their freedom and nothing else after spending 45 minutes in Apple’s fishbowl. Bad form, Apple.
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What a bunch of crybabies. I would hate to see
some people in the face of true adversity. We
have become a bunch of entitlement crazy little
kids. “I stubbed my toe on the leg of the iPod
display table, will you give me a Macbook?”
Pathetic
First the fatties scratch up their nanos, now they screw up Apple’s hydrollic lift.
Unhealthy fat fucks.
$50 each??!! Give me a break. I can see maybe a ten dollar iTunes card, but even then they would have to deal with hundreds of Apple geeks descending on the store just to ride the elevator in hopes of it breaking again. You know it’s true.
Here’s my question: Why are these apparently perfectly ambulant people riding down and up a one-story elevator?
Everyone appears to be assuming that the elevator runs on Mac OS. Who are you kidding. The thing is more likely to have some M$ code running it, and this little, _very little_ incident is more likely proof of that. If the elevator had been running on MacOSX, it probably would be able to tell if your mood was high or low, whether your cholesterol was high this morning, the relative price of Apple stock, etc and adjust the ride accordingly, with your choice of song from iTunes playing while you go down and finishing when you get back into the elevator to return to ground entrance level.
They rode the elevator because a glass elevator projected onto the street with a glass enclosure is the main reason Apple got all the publicity in the mainstream press for opening the store in the first place. Do you think the average New Yorker gives a flip about a store opening?
I’d think anybody that didn’t ride it at least on the first visit to the store is missing the whole point.
Inconvenience is a way of life in NYC….I know, I was inconvenienced for 13 years
OK, now this site has got really silly.
“Apple, it just works”
TT:
man, you shouldn’t talk about your mom like that.
I wonder what the phone call to the elevator company was like?
Too funny.
Why does it look like NONE of them are disabled in any way that would force them to take the elevator instead of the stairs? They were just too lazy to walk, in my opinion, and they got what they deserved. Unless it’s a 20-storey+ building, I see no reason to take an elevator.
Compensation culture reigns
Get the lawyers on it
Shit happens
Get over it
Brad, you’re a tool. I hope the next time you ride the escalator, your shoelace gets caught up and sucks your leg down and they have to amputate it. Or maybe it will happen to your mom…
I don’t see any wheelchairs or crutches in that group. No wonder so many Americans are fat.
Would you rather ride a couple of blocks in a Mercedes SL 600, or maybe a Ferrari, or would you say who gives a shit, I’m healthy and not on crutches, so I’d rather walk?
Lazy bastards deserve it. If any persons were wheel chair bound, I apologize.
Reminder to self: Don’t get in an Elevator with Windows.
MDN: “life”, as in “that’s life, folks.”
I would ride the elevator if I were going there, at least once. I’ve never been in a glass elevator before. I don’t think chastizing the people for choosing to participate in a unique experience they couldn’t get anywhere else is the way to go.
To all those criticizing perfectly healthy people for riding this elevator–grow a brain for a second. Please.
I walk up and down 5 flights of stairs to my work and my apartment every day. I avoid taking the lifts when I can.
But if I were visiting this store you’d better freaking believe I’d take the glass elevator at least once.
This is not to say many people *aren’t* lazy and will take a lift a mere one storey, but the glass elevator here is a special case. It’s a novelty and attraction, on top of being handicap-accessible.
Apple absolutely should have offered a token of apology. $300 in gift certificates is a drop in the bucket, and is the standard “right thing to do” when your customers are unduly inconvenienced by your staff or facility.
But honestly, the stairs are NOT a good alternative:
The stairs in that store are fine for coming down (in), but very dangerous for going up (out).. the steps are wedge-shaped, and the inside of each step is too short (less than 11 inches) and overlaps the stair beneath it by an inch or so.
So when you try to walk up those stairs, your feet catch under the step above it. Somebody’s going to fall and hurt themselves real soon on that unless they correct it.
Let me explain something to those who obviuosly don’t get it.
Good customer service has nothing to do with entitlement.
So far as I’ve heard, nothing has been reported about those stuck in the elevator saying they feel ripped off because Apple didn’t give them anything. It’s just some people here saying they think Apple flubbed a chance at demonstrating really good customer service.
This issue is really about sloppy management. The store manager on duty at the time should have done something. This isn’t about Apple’s corporate attitude to customer service. Unless Apple’s policies are NOT to do anything, in which case, yeah, that’s bad form Apple.
Odds are that elevator does not have A/C built-in. Most don’t. Can you imagine what it might have been like for those customers had this taken place in the middle of the summer at noon on a cloudless day?
Good thing Apple didn’t build this in my town, Phoenix, AZ. Stuck 45 minutes in a glass elevator in a glass cube…even at this time of year that spells cooked customers.
You don’t know the history of busting out of elevators. I do.
I didn’t think of that-it’s already 87(30+ C.) degrees and sunny where I live. That water would have been poured on me rather than drunk.
Apple store elevator traps group of customers for 45 minutes, MDN people blame the customers for being fat and lazy. Mac users are the best.