All Apple and AT&T retail stores will be closing on Friday, June 29th at 4:30pm local time to prepare for the Apple iPhone launch. Stores will reopen at 6:00pm local time and begin selling iPhones while they last, according to internal AT&T documents published by The Boy Genius Report.
“One more confirmation from the leaked doc, is that AT&T stores should “inform landlords in all locations (except enclosed malls) that your store hours will be extended until 10:00PM on Friday, June 29th,” says The Boy Genius Report.
In the document “Prepare Landlord for iPhone Launch,” AT&T tells retail store managers to “Order ‘Crowd Control Devices,'” including stanchions, plus how to effectively form lines and deal with landlords.
Full article with document images here.
MacDailyNews Take: Set phasers to stun!
So riotguns must be orderd.
AT&T tells retail store managers to “Order ‘Crowd Control Devices.”
does this mean i’ll get maced if i try to cut the line?
This is starting to look like Vista’s launch…
Tasers? Mace? Waving a Zune around and yelling: “If you don’t back off, this is what you’ll get!”
Any word on restrictions “1 per customer” etc to prevent “Re-bayers” from buying all the stock?
Seems a bit of a waste of time to close for 90 minutes to then reopen for the 5 minutes it will take to sell out.
I guess I should wear my Hang Tens in case of water canons…..
So great is the appeal of “Better Than Life” when one store in New Tokyo ran out of stocks rubber nuclear weapons had to be deployed to disperse the crowd.
‘Crowd Control Devices’ means ropes and stanchions (aka ‘the velvet rope’).
Wear your bathing suit in case of water cannons. Jobs-o specially designed the water so that it won’t ruin your iPhone.
All store managers should wear Algore or Hillaryous masks to make sure the crowds cower into submission. That is, just prior to raising taxes on the rich people who can afford iPhones.
That was quite a heated exchange in the sample dialogue. Two grown men bickering over stanchions. Hasn’t it been proven stanchions don’t work?
Do they mean they need those stanchion things to create lines? Why not just hand out little gold tickets to the lucky people?
I hope they have bathrooms, we don’t want any of those situations where people pee’d themselves when Henrico sold $50 iBooks.
In the event of a unruly mob, a life-size cutout of Steve Ballmer wearing only a Speedo and his tongue fully extended will drop from the ceiling of the store. Paramedics will be on hand for any uncontrollable projectile vomiting.
{shudder}
TMF
“Paramedics will be on hand for any uncontrollable projectile vomiting.”
Is there such a thing as ‘controllable’ projectile vomiting? My kids sure didn’t have it…or wait, maybe that is why it always landed on me!
“Is there such a thing as ‘controllable’ projectile vomiting?”
Duct tape?
Break out the mace and TASERs !!!!
j/k….Just save them for Dvorak and Enderle if they show up.
It’s going to be so freaking awesome when MDN reports on June 30th that Apple sold more iPhones in 4 hours than Microsoft sold Zunes in 9 months.
Life is sweet
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I thought that AT&T’s monthly rates for iPhone owners was the crowd control device. Sorry. Sorry. I couldn’t help that. By the way, what is AT&T going to charge iPhone owners? That little bit of information isn’t getting leaked out to the public is it?
” . . . sold more iPhones in 4 hours than Microsoft sold Zunes in 9 months.”
And more iPhones than all RAZRs to date?
(And Safari is about to be everywhere.)
I have just bought shares in a nappy making factory, we intend to deploy nappy vending vans close to the stores, so that people need not come out of the queue’s for toilet fascilities.
One drawback is that I am not allowed to flog Camel’s Milk on the day!
Release the hounds! Cry, ‘Havok!’ and let slip the dogs of… {sees stanchions} Dude, my bad. Where do you want me to stand, again? Here? Cool… Hey, sorry about that. Yeah. Thanks.
Crowd Control Devices = Zunes
Can you imagine it, the line ups with their iPods? I can imagine there will be what squirting should be really about.
You know, you showing off your iPod, someone else does.
You connect.
So you pull your ear buds out.
And, well not squirt.
iSwap.
And you listen to each other.
Yup, I can see the crowd control people going pretty wild. “WOULD YOU PLEASE START SOMETHING AGGRESSIVE SO WE CAN BEAT YOU UP? WE GET PAID A BONUS FROM MICROSOFT IF YOU DO.”
Now here is the twist. Someone, just one mind you, comes walking along the line towards you. It seems weird, but you see the pieces, the T-shirt, a brown box waving about from his hand. And then the writting on the T-shirt big bold letters.
Zune Tang.
Walking down the line, stopping at the girls, dangling his wangler: “Wanna squirt?”
Would the crowd control people be able to resist? Would they raise their mallets to pound first, blame later, and covered it all in mmmmmmmmmm FUUUUUUDD FUUUUUUUDD FFFUUUUUUDge sauce.
Or would there be someone, just one, brave enough to step apart from the rest and giving an iPod to a crowd control officer.
“Here you go, I don’t need this anymore. I am getting an iPhone.”
I was at an AT&T store last week. They didn’t know anything about the plans for the 29th. Didn’t know if sales began at 9 a.m. or 6 p.m.
The sales guy grumbled that he was the only guy that will be working that night and that they close at 7 p.m. I told him to getting ready for a change in plans.
These people at AT&T stores are clueless for what is in store for them on the 29th. Their management better do more than send out memos; they need a good wake up call.