Apple Stores Are Seductive (Online and Offline)

Let’s face it, Apple Stores are dead sexy.

The aesthetics, layout, and even the employees of retail Apple Stores really make for a quality experience. Personally, I have yet to have a bad experience with an Apple Retail Store or the Apple Online Store. As soon as you enter one of these stores, you’re welcomed with a smiling face. Yes, maybe that smiling face is hiding a very hungover employee, but it feels nonetheless genuine. Every Apple Store I’ve visited has always been well-staffed. There’s always a person to ask if you need assistance, even at the busiest times of day. Apple truly has every facet of consumer need filled with a special position.

The aforementioned greeter is what Apple calls Concierge. Apple describes Concierge as, “The warm welcome comes to life.  Be the first person our customer meets—that sets the tone for the revolutionary shopping experience only Apple can give,” and boy do they have that shopping experience right.

The other type of employee is the specialist. They’re the people who ask if you need help and are always there to fill your needs. If you really need one-to-one help with shopping, you can set an appointment for a Personal Shopping Specialist. This is a true, face-to-face shopping experience. With a Personal Shopping Specialist you don’t have to fight for attention (not that you do at an Apple Store) and don’t feel rushed to make purchases. I’ve had a shopping specialist help me and a friend with an iMac purchase. Never before have we felt so at-ease about a product and not feel buyer-remorse. You have to remember that it is incredibly easy in the retail world to emulate a used car salesman; at the Apple store, there are no cheesy sales pitches or coerced purchases.

One of the most prominent areas (the focus, actually) of the Apple Retail Store, is the Genius Bar. This is what sets Apple apart from the rest of the computer-service chains. The Genius Bar is available to any Apple customer, whether the product is under warranty or not, for troubleshooting of any Apple Product. Appointment-based, the Genius Bar really is an experience in itself. Coming from a world where you build your own PC and have respective warranties for each product, it was mind-blowing to know I could take my Mac to the Genius Bar and get every derivative of it inspected and repaired at one place. There are times when your hardware needs to be shipped off, but most of the time it’s fixed on the spot. Each Genius is fully trained and knows all of the nooks and crannies of a Mac and OS X.

The second component of the Apple Store experience is the Apple Online Store. Here you can get the same experience at a normal Apple Retail Store with the added convenience of sitting at home. The design of the website is very streamlined and it is incredibly easy to find any product. Most, if not all, products in the Apple Online Store have zoomed-in views and Apple/Customer product reviews all in one page. Not only is the shopping experience easy; the checkout procedure is fast and painless.

All of these components of Apple Retail make it really hard not to purchase an Apple product.

iPhone 3G – The Night, The Phone, and The Aftermath (Part Three)

This is the third and final installment of my iPhone camp out debacle

Scene: iGerard and iPhone 3G, driving on to Gainesville, FL. I gave my dad a call and thanked him for giving me his SSN so early in the morning. Then all of a sudden I hear my iPhone 2G ring. I look at it, wondering why in the world its ringing. I pick up the phone and go through the usual maneuvers. I hit the sleep/wake button then keep driving on. Then I noticed, I could call my phone number from the iPhone 3G. Also, why in the world was the old iPhone still activated? I quickly grabbed my iPhone 3G and called Kolin up. I asked him what number did he see on the screen.

Turns out it was my dad’s phone number that was showing up. Not good.

I stopped at the next exit and quickly dialed 611. Evidently, when I activated my iPhone 3G, Anwar put it under my dad’s phone number instead of my phone line. So, there’s the iPhone 3G activated on my dad’s line and my old iPhone still activated on my phone line. I got on with an AT&T representative and told her my case. Everything was going fine and I started to drive on back to Gainesville. Then, about 20 miles out and 15 minutes being on hold later, she tells me I have to drive back to the Apple Store to switch the numbers and that there is NO possible way to fix it over the phone.

I try to keep my cool, turn around, and start driving back to the Apple Store… 120 miles away. The whole way I try to call up the Apple Store to see if they can do anything without me having to drive the rest of the way. Unfortunately, no one answered the phone, which makes perfect sense considering how busy they were, and would be, for the rest of the day. After a long spat of hitting myself to stay awake and intense concentration on the road, I finally arrive in Tampa and pull into International Plaza.

I got to the Apple Store and was recognized by the security guards. I told them the situation and they escorted me to the entrance of the Apple Store, passing the whole line and, again, seeing faces wide eyed and agape. I talked to Ric, the head specialist, and told him what the AT&T representative had told me. He then went to consult the store manager and left me to wait. A few Apple Store employees, including John and TJ, asked me what I was doing back in the store. After telling them my story – the third time I had told the incredibly long story – they had a similar one to tell me (minus the purchase of an iPhone 3G on the wrong line, driving back and forth… nevermind, nothing like my story in anyway except for the grief). John told me that a few minutes after Kolin and I had left, their servers to contact AT&T had went down so, vis a vi, their POS units were useless to purchase the phones. After talking to them for a little bit, Ric came back to me and told me I had to go to the AT&T store in International Plaza to deal with it there. He told me he notified the manager and told me to head over there and they would explain what I needed to do.

I went to the AT&T store, seeing a short line, and went straight inside for the manager. Thinking back I probably should have waited in line behind the other customers, but I was already livid that I had to drive back and get bounced around between the two stores. I went inside and waited for the manager to come out of the back. He finally came out and told me, not asked but TOLD ME, to go outside and wait. I told him that Ric sent me over there to get this situation fixed. He cut me off before I could finish my sentence and said I have to wait outside and he doesn’t care about my problem right now. “There are more problems in here right now than what you’re having. What problem could you have anyway? You already have the iPhone???”

Verbatim

I was holding my tongue because this guy really had no effing clue. Many choice words and phrases came up but I calmly said, “I was told to come here and the situation would be fixed. I’ve been awake for the last 25 hours and I’d REALLY like to get mine and my father’s phone fixed ASAP.” Now, it seemed at this point the world stood still, both of us staring angrily at each other, probably wanting to rip each other’s throat out. Me, at a staggering (compared to him) 5′ 8”, towered over his 5′ 1” puny body waiting to rip him a new one. Finally he asked me, nicely this time, to step outside and wait in line.

I went outside…

After 15 minutes, the vertically challenged guy with a power trip went out to ask each customer what they needed. He finally came to me and told me that I can switch out the SIM card in my iPhone EDGE (thanks for term kpereira XD) to my iPhone 3G. My dad would then have to go to an AT&T store in Texas to get a new SIM card for his phone. He also assured me that when he does, he’ll be escorted to the desk – skipping whatever line there was for the iPhone 3G – to get a new SIM card. I really don’t know how considering I didn’t even give him the location of the store he would be going to. I switched out the SIM cards and called my dad, telling him what to do for his phone.

I walked back through the mall, still getting satisfaction as people stared at my white iPhone 3G and nifty bag, and got to the Apple Store. I thanked Ric and the rest of the staff and proceeded to leave the malll, again being escorted by security. I’m glad they did that, considering I could have been mugged for my prized possession.

I got inside my car, plotted my path in Maps, and started the drive to Gainesville.

This time, for good.

Feel free to check out my FriendFeed account for all of my iPhone 3G content from the launch. There you’ll find links to my Flickr, Youtube, Vimeo, and every other service you can find me on!

iGerard

App Store!

The iPhone 3G is an awesome phone. It now has 3G speeds and built-in GPS, nicer form factor, flush headphone jack, and better audio. A lot of people say this is the iPhone that should have come out last year. Also many say it’s not worth the buy for two extra features. While this may remain true, one overlooked factor that applies to both handsets is the amazing addition of app store.

App store really is a one of a kind way for developers to get their apps to consumers. With the 2.0 fimware update every iPhone and iPod touch has access to hundreds of apps. There are many apps out there that are free such as AIM, Pandora, Last.fm, Facebook, and Myspace. All of these apps work wonderfully and take advantage of the multi-touch user interface of iPhone.

The app store really sets the iPhone apart from other handsets, in my opinion. I’ve always worked with CDMA networks before switching over to AT&T and I have to admit, I haven’t seen anything like this. Also, the quality of the apps are far beyond anything you could get on a Blackberry, Treo, or other smartphones. I’ve used a Treo 755, Moto Q, and Blackberry Curve before and haven’t been able to get apps or an app delivery system that is up to par with App Store.

The final part that will make the apps literally untouchable by other smartphone apps is the implementation of the Push Notification Service. This service keeps the apps on iPhone from having to run in the background, therefore preserving the battery life (which by some, including me, hasn’t been that sporty with 3G). The way the push notification service works is that it keeps a constant connection to your iPhone through direct IP. A developer can push a badge, notification sound, or notification window that requires input.

I think this is a far better way than having run applications in the background and give the user a “task manager.” Although, from a power user’s point of view, a task manager isn’t’ that bad because we know what the processes are. I think it would be excellent to give the option for you to run the app in the background. I’d love to be able to listen to Pandora, AOL Radio, or Last.fm while sending a text or taking pictures, as if it were the native iPod app. We all know, though, that as soon as you hit the home button or click “view” when you receive a new text, the music stops and you can’t go back to the song you were just listening to. So, in reality, not having background processes is a double-edged sword.

So, what do you think of app store and what are your favorite apps? Feel free to post your sceenshots of you home screen. You can do a screen shot in iPhone by pressing the Home button + Sleep/Wake Button. Hope to see some cool shots from everyone!

iPhone 3G – The Night, The Phone, and The Aftermath (Part Two)

This is a second part of my three part iPhone Camp out story. Feel free to check out my twitter conversations on quotably.com and Flickr photostream to complement the story.

When I read over my first part of the series yesterday I felt like I left a few important elements out. Not anything epic, but small tidbits that really made the night worthwhile. Around the time when Scott and the high school graduate had joined the line, two Apple employees came out to talk to us – John and TJ, both specialists. TJ had talked to Kolin earlier when the security guards were giving him trouble. He offered to let him stay inside the Apple store but I think Kolin didn’t mind being outside. John talked to us and said we should get something for being the first few. I figured an iPhone day shirt wouldn’t be bad. Of course, those were for the employees only and they had to wear it for launch day. He then suggested we should get cookies. I then had a big smile on my face and happily told him I wouldn’t mind a free cookie. He laughed and him and TJ went back to the store to help close up. About 25 minutes later he came back out with two yellow bags in his hand, yellow bags that contained about a pound of mini Nestle Tollhouse cookies. He gave one bag to me and another to Kolin. We both thanked him multiple times for the cookies, at first not accepting them. I didn’t believe that he would actually buy us cookies, with his own money at that. I think I’ll send him and the rest of the Apple staff a card, they really were a great group of people.

Honestly, when I look back, the hours between 2am-5am are a complete blur. It was around this point that Kolin, Scott, sirmalloc, and I were contemplating sleeping or not. I really didn’t feel to comfortable sleeping in line and in my quite unstable chair. When I think about it now, I remember the tag saying the weight limit was 225 lbs. and lets just say I’m a little over that. I recall very little, but one moment I do remember is a security guard talking into an emergency call post in the parking lot. It was kind of odd because we could see and hear him trying to talk to it while the person on the other end would blare, “This line is for emergencies only” or something to that effect. Around this time the security guards also found it fit to take pictures of us. One claimed it was to show the condition of the sidewalk through the night and to document any shenanigans. Really though, we’re just Apple kids waiting patiently for a product, not pre-pubescent teens waiting in line for a Hannah Montana or Jonas Brothers concert.

After 5am time seemed to fly by, checking our clocks every now and then at seemingly 15 minute intervals. Not only talking about our love for Apple, we all shared a few of our hobbies. Sirmalloc showed me some photos on his iPhone from his amateur photography. I really shouldn’t use the word amateur, the pictures were amazing. Of course, anything is amazing compared to my point-and-shoot madness. He was incredibly knowledgeable in the world of photography, giving me some tips and tricks to the field. I’ve always wanted to take up photography for a hobby, but haven’t found the time and money to take it up; it’s on my list of things to do.

Finally the sun had completely risen and a few Apple employees came outside with a cart full of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, coffee, and SmartWater. We all wolfed down our free doughnuts and slowly drank our desperately needed caffeine. Around 730a, the head security guard made an announcement on the procedure upon entering the mall. He then unhooked the rope in front of us and ushered us into the mall. As we went through the automatic glass doors, I felt a strong wind breeze past me. Air conditioning never felt so good, and cold! We walked all the way to the end of the roped off area, just one more section away from the roped path in front of the Apple store. We stood there for a few minutes, taking pictures of the line inside of the mall and each other (you can find these photos in my Flickr photostream).

The security guard in front of our blocked off area talked to us a little bit, still not believing that we stayed the whole night in front of the mall. He then got the signal to usher us to the roped off area in front of the Apple store. At this point it was 8:55a, the longest 5 minutes of my life. Scott, Kolin, and I started to take pictures before the gates rose in front of the Apple logo. We were basically trying to find anything to talk about to pass the 5 minutes by. A reporter from the St. Petersburg times came and interviewed Kolin, then talked to us about the iPhone 3G, trying to decide if he wanted to upgrade as well. Grabbing our attention, we could hear the Apple employees inside doing a pep talk and cheer. I looked through the gate and saw that there was a black curtain in front of the whole store. Not 15 seconds after I noticed the curtain they started taking it down. While the employees were lowering the curtain, the rest of the employees started a countdown. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… the gate rose. We were all welcomed in with clapping and smiling faces. I noticed most of the employees, as most of them talked to us throughout the night. Purchasers were directed to the left and people who wanted to demo the units were directed to the right. I did notice a few go to the right, but we camped out to buy this phone… now.

We were each given a personal shopping assistant and were then guided to a Mac. Anwar was my shopping assistant, and he couldn’t have done a better job. I’ve never had a bad experience at an Apple store, each experience better than the last. Anwar asked me if I had all of the items needed to purchase the iPhone, ID, credit card, etc. I assured him that was iReady . He grabbed my beautiful white 16GB iPhone, Dock, and mobileMe box. I took pictures of each item at the table, because I couldn’t un-box it at home. Before unboxing, we had to check eligibility by putting in all of my personal information. I’m on a family talk plan so I had to call my father to get his social security number – waking him up wasn’t the best idea considering he’s on central time. Finally the process was finished and I took out the phone – boy did it feel great. Activation was a cinch as well, easy as plugging it in via USB sync cable and I was done.

I took my phone and raised it in the air, like a trophy . I got a lot of smiles and claps. One of the Apple employees that came to talk to me through the night (I cannot remember her name) took a picture of me with my iPhone in hand, doing my classic smile and thumbs up – the pose that you can find me doing with Steve on my site’s logo. I went over to Kolin to see how his activation was doing; he was having trouble getting a hold of his parents. The shopping specialist he had told him that his parents had to be there. This turned out to be false, all Kolin had to do was get his mother’s social like I did with my father. While Kolin was getting his ducks in a row, I was talking with the St. Petersburg Times reporter about the iPhone 3G, doing some things on camera. He asked me what I use my iPhone for and how much better is it compared to the 2G model. I did a speed demonstration with 3G, just like Steve did at WWDC. It really was about 2.8x faster when loading National Geographic. After Kolin finally got everything lined up, I showed me his black 8GB iPhone and smiled – we did it. We looked around to find Scott and sirmalloc but couldn’t find them. We later found out that they were one of the first ones finished and left to avoid the rush.

Kolin and I walked to the exit, showing off our phone to the people in line behind us. We got to the sliding glass doors and one of the security guards that was with us through the night asked to see our phones and congratulated us. We shook his hand and went outside.

When we passed through the sliding glass doors, we looked at the line to find that it had almost tripled when we entered. I have to say that I breathed a sigh of relief, camping out was well worth it. When I think about it, it really wasn’t about the iPhone as much it was for the experience. I’m glad I did the camp out and met Scott and sirmalloc. Thanks to twitter and the cornucopia of social networks, we all still stay in touch. I went to my car, put my purchases in the passenger seat, and started my trip back home. As if coming full circle, I opened up Maps and planned my route home. Only this time, I have GPS and turn-by-turn directions.

(I will complete my story tomorrow in my final post. Yes, this isn’t the end. )

iPhone 3G – The Night, The Phone, and The Aftermath (Part One)

With the dust settling of the iPhone 3G launch – for me at least – it’s nice to reflect on the long, fun and strenuous sequence of events that was the iPhone 3G launch day.

I woke up at my usual time, a time that I will not disclose , and ran the usual routine. Try to accurately hit the “snooze” button on my docked iPhone 5-10 times, shower, get clothed, and check email/rss feeds/twitter (the latter I like to call my “vitals”). After that I drove over to my girlfriend’s house to take her to class, and then proceeded to the Grooveshark office for my internship.

I got to the office and set-up my MacBook and got my work for the day. The office was mostly abuzz about the new iPhone 2.0 firmware that released Thursday morning – albeit not official. One of the guys (I can’t remember his name though) showed me the Facebook app and the Pandora app and I got really excited. I then had a 8GB jailbroken iPhone so upgrading to the firmware 2.0 ran the risk of bricking my iPhone. In almost a split second I decided to remove the jailbreak, restore, then upgrade to 2.0. While waiting for the long process to complete I completed most of the tasks that were set for me, although they were really limited as the lead web developer didn’t have much for me to do other than get PHP 5 down.

When it finally finished I went on an app purchasing frenzy, although when I say purchasing I really mean clicking free, followed by install. I downloaded the aforementioned Facebook and Pandora apps, Jott and Twitterific. All of the apps worked great and were of an obvious higher quality than that of Installer.app. Throughout the day I was getting constant updates from Kolin, who was already at the store at 12PM. Kolin actually got the attention of Tampa Bay Online (TBO) and sent a reporter out there to get an interview. Jealous was I . After getting my fix of official apps, I packed up my MacBook and left the office to prepare for the long night ahead of me.

When I arrived at my apartment I got a quick shower and grabbed my WWDC shirt, khaki shorts and a pair of incredibly comfortable mesh shorts just in case. I loaded up new Maps app and plotted my route to the Tampa Apple Store – a straight shot down I-75 thankfully. I finally hit the road around 3:30P, not stopping for snacks or anything at Target like I originally planned; I needed to make up for lost time so I decided to claim my spot in line, then go to Target for food and everything else – a plan that later proved a superb choice. I finally arrived at the mall around 5:15, realizing that the whole trip really was a blur due to my daydreaming of iPhone 3G the entire way. When I think about it, I’m really thankful I got there safely through my 2 hours of incredibly divided attention. I met Kolin near the entrance of the Apple Store and we talked to a few Apple employees. Evidently Kolin was already well known at the store as mall security continually hassled him throughout the day, only to find out the Apple employees had his back (whoever says Apple employees suck definitely haven’t been to an Apple store). After perusing the Apple store pre-iPhone 3G madness, we went outside to sit on a bench and mooch off of Apple Store (although spotty) wi-fi.

For the next hour and a half it was just Kolin and I sitting on the bench talking about the gadget we were about to both enjoy. Something had occured to me while were sitting there and I was wolfing down water, where would we use the bathrooms? Before I could start calling dibbs on palm trees, Kolin pointed out that the mall had Porta-Pottys setup just for our use. It was kind of disappointing, I was hoping I could mix some Survivor-man with our campout but that just wasn’t in the cards. 7PM was the official time for the line to start outside of the mall so a security guard – who was a complete jerk with his condesending tone and demeanor – quite impolitely told us to “get off the bench and move to the roped area.” Not stooping to his level, we both agreed and politely moved ourselves and our belongings over to the roped area. This is when a few people joined in the line, the few that we would eventually talk to the whole night.

A few people had join the early line-up, including TBO.com reporter Scott Newman (different than aforementioned reporter) who covered the whole campout via iPhone and Blackberry blog posts. A few other people joined in, a recent high school graduate, a graphic designer, and a phlebotomist – all who hail from Tampa. It looked like Kolin and I were the only out-of-towners making the campout.

Our night had begun and we all stood around for a few hours talking about our love for Apple, the new iPhone 3G, and where we stood in the tech world. Before the sunset we all introduced ourselves and our Apple backgrounds. Kolin and I introduced ourselves as full-time Apple nerds and college students. Scott, other than reporting for TBO, is a programmer working for a consultant agency based out of Atlanta specializing in Python. Scott had the current iPhone, buying it the day after the big release. The graphic designer, who I will call Mr. Blonde, works for a group in Tampa and uses a Mac for his work; this is his first iPhone. For most of the night it was me, Kolin, and Scott that talked throughout the night. We had a few conversations with Mr. Blonde and a another first-time adopter, Luis.

At around 1130ish I started to think that I may need a chair for the night, as did Scott and Kolin. Luis and I drove down to the nearest Target and purchased some cheap chairs (a little too cheap in Scott’s case, more later), bug spray, and some McDonald’s. While at Target I got a tweet from Kolin saying that Bay 9 News was coming to do a report on us – awesome! When Luis and I got back I had remembered one very important thing – an extension cord for our laptops sans wi-fi. Although a little disappointment, it later proved unnecessary.

After setting up our chairs a van pulled up with the Bay 9 News logo. The cameraman interviewed both Kolin and I about the campout and the iPhone 3G. After blaring a huge light in our face and putting a huge fuzzy boom mic next to our mouth, he packed up his equipment and left – back to the long night.

A few nuisances kept us going through the night. One of which were the ants. Even though most of us had use the bug spray it had seemed futile against the wrath of the ants, which were huge I would like to add. Also, while most were asleep, the mall decided it would be a great idea to turn on the sprinklers, primarily the ones right next to us. As soon as the first sprinkler went off the line disbanded as tired Apple-heads scarmbled to get their electronics in dry areas. After the short episode with the sprinklers, we had the nice aroma of reclaimed water to smell the rest of the night. Many forgot about water runoff going down the sidewalk and were quickly reminded as they noticed their blankets or bags getting a little wet minutes later. Around 2AM a street-sweeper came by and Zamboni’d his way through the parking lot, seemlingly making more a mess than what was previously there.

Following the sprinkler and street-sweeper incidents, another programmer joined our little group, whose name escapes me but I will call sirmalloc from his Twitter handle, who specializes in Microsoft .NET and web development. He had the iPhone and was planning on upgrading later, but decided to come out after reading Scott’s blog and me and Kolin’s Twitter posts. It seemed after sirmalloc joined our group that the night went by a lot faster. All night we talked about the iPhone SDK, played with new apps, and talked about ways to implement what we wanted in the iPhone such as copy/paste, MMS and access to Bluetooth API’s.

Finally the sun started to rise and we prepared ourselves to enter the mall promptly at 7AM.

(will continue tomorrow with photos, feel free to check out our twitter posts through the night)

Apple Asks: Are You Ready?

I’m really glad they didn’t ask if we were “iReady.” Leave it to AT&T for something that lame.

Here’s just a quick refresher – as if you haven’t heard enough already – on what you need for iPhone 3G launch day.

[Read at Electronista]

Need Help Picking the Right iPhone 3G Plan?

There’s an excellent app online called BillShrink that can help you calculate how much that iPhone 3G familiy plan is going to cost you over a 2 year plan. All you have to do is move the sliders around and – voila! – you have your cost!

Great app, even though you can probably do it by hand.

[Read at Gizmodo]

It’s Official: 8AM iPhone 3G Launch in the US

I think when the boys at Cupertino send a consumer email stating that an 8AM launch will happen at their local Apple Store, it will happen.

The day is almost upon us and I hope your as excited as I am. I’ll be broadcasting live from Tampa, FL with fellow Apple lovers awaiting the iPhone 3G. I’ll also be hosting a iPhone 3G “iReady Q&A” session with blogger specialKolin as well. Be sure to catch us at http://www.blogtv.com/People/igerard for all of the action!

iPhone 3G Checklist!

Here’s a great post by Dr. Macenstein over at Macenstein.com, take this into account with getting iReady!

Thinking of buying a 3G iPhone? Well, it won’t be quite the brainless affair that buying the 1st gen model was. Here’s some helpful hints a little birdy told us for all of you planning to waste your lives show your Apple pride by waiting in line for the device:

- Have your social security number and government ID ready (that means license or equivalent, NO SCHOOL IDS), Apple will be doing credit checks and in-store activation through Easypay

– You have to pay with a credit or debit card. Cash and checks won’t be accepted. (The loophole to that is that you can purchase an Apple gift card with cash (or check), and use that to purchase the iPhone.)

- Plans will be decided in-store. Existing customers will get billed, first time AT&T customers will have to pay the activation fee in store (no gift cards for that)

- Rumor has it the iPhone may go on sale at 8am on Friday. The Apple Store is allegedly changing “visuals” at night until around 3am, instead of closing the store during the day and opening at 6pm the way they did for the 1st gen iPhone.

[Read at Macenstein]

iPhone 3G Demo Units to Hit Stores

Looks like Apple and AT&T stores are going to be receiving some packages containing demo units of iPhone 3G. According to a leaked sales memo, employees are to download apps from the App Store on July 11th and the phones are to be activated July 10.

Apple also held their retail meeting last night. Details are surely to trickle as the week continues. It seems that Apple stores may be opening at 8AM, the same as AT&T. If they don’t, this sort of ruins my fun for this weekend!

One thing to note – as of late it is still unclear as to which place non-AT&T customers should go because AT&T has to deem them eligible to sign for a plan. To play it safe, visit your local AT&T store at launch day.

[Read at MacRumors]