“Suzanne Rickles had an easy enough plan in mind Saturday – buy a computer at the Apple store opening that day at The Summit,” Marie Leech reports for The Birmingham News.
“She got there at 10:15 a.m., just 15 minutes after the store opened, thinking she would walk right in,” Leech reports. “Not quite.”
“‘I never thought in a million years it would be like this,’ she said, staring at the backs of at least 1,000 heads in line waiting to get into the store,” Leech reports.
Leech reports, “The line, wrapped all the way around the sidewalks at The Summit, was hours long. Security guards had the areas roped off, much like the lines for the Georgia Cyclone at Six Flags.”
Leech reports, “Paul Barnes. who lives in Cambridge, England, but is in Alabama visiting friends. ‘I went to the grand opening of Apple in Rome, Italy, so I’m not surprised about the line at all. It’s like a cult for a lot of Mac users. A lot of them are freaks, if you really want to know the truth.'”
Full article here.
More info about Apple Store The Summit for you freaks here.
Finally starting to infiltrate the deep south. Now look westward Apple!
“A lot of them [Mac users] are freaks, if you really want to know the truth.”
Uh-huh, and Windows dweebs are SO DAMNED NORMAL!
They’re all nuts.
More people showed up at Apple’s deep south store to buy items than all the people who have actually gone out a PAID for a Vista upgrade.
Can’t stand freaks, don’t ye’ know, what!
Lazy, long-haired, pot-smoking yobos.
Three years in the army is what they need!
A lot of them are freaks. Complete nutjobs.
It has been a long time coming. I Now live within a 40 min. drive to a actual Apple Store. I was out of town this weekend but I wanted to go so bad.
Long live the Apple Stores!
Apple has job postings for Kentucky’s first Apple Store, which will be in Oxmoor Center in Louisville, and I expect a similar crowd there. Since I live about 5 miles from there, I’ll definitely be there — although I don’t think I’ll sleep in the parking lot that night. 6:00am seems like a good time to get there.
Jobs will now start his march to the sea
…I am no freak……I am an insane freak ….MAC freak that is
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />….!
Mac “freak is my middel name” B
I invented freaks.
“Jobs will now start his march to the sea”
I hope that you are right.
The Apple store I worked in had a very high turn over rate. Both in Mac Specialist and Mac Genius. Some would quit, some got fired because management just didn’t like them.
If a customer would complain loud and long enough, management would cave in give the customer whatever they wanted.
If the customer would accept that the iPod was out of warranty or that the MacBook’s screen was broken and wasn’t covered by AppleCare they got NOTHING!!
Working with the public is hard, but working with the public and crummy management is a no win situation.
That’s right, Jimmy. I had a friend who worked at an Apple store who told me the same kind of story. I’ll shop in the store but I don’t don’t want to work in one.
You don’t know the history of freaks…
I do.
Nice rant. Is it irrelevant to the story? YES.
I think the last time there was a story about waiting in line in Alabama it was about separate entrances for “colored” folks.
I tip my hat to the South for joining the 21st century. There’s hope for you yet.
m
A lot of them are freaks, if you really want to know the truth.
Wasn’t this story about Alabama?
Thousands of freaks and not one with a camera? 🙁
Apple added a special feature for Southern stores. There’s a Dental Bar right next to the Genius Bar
pre-opening photos
http://www.jeremyflint.com/archives/2007/04/13/apple-store-the-summit-unwrapped/
BTW mudflapper, I’m so glad we can talk about the south without implications of racism. I guess some people need to be able to categorize everything so they can put it neatly away into the file drawers of of their simple mind.
Yeah, but didn’t like 70 people show up for the launch of Vista in London (the one in England)?
You just can’t beat the “Wow” factor of Vista with a little store opening.
Time for a store in Boise.
just imagine all the knuckle marks on those sidewalks …
tip of the hat to Mr. Reeee — well played.
Originally from San Francisco, I moved to Memphis, Tennessee last year. There is an Apple Store here, one of the first in the nation by the way, and it provides every bit of the same refreshing retail experience as any other Apple Store I’ve had the privilege of visiting. Of course it doesn’t have the sweeping staircases of San Francisco or Chicago, and doesn’t have the grand entrance of NYC, but the experience is consistent. A spacious shopping environment staffed by intelligent, informed and interested Mac-heads.
Don’t be so quick to slag on the South. We’re all one big Mac-centric universe moving toward becoming one with all things Apple.
We have more in common with each other than we’d care to admit. We are thoughtless to forget.
Please remember tolerance.
thank you.
– d
(quietly steps off soap box, disappears into crowd of Apple acolytes….)