So, I talked my wife into accompanying me to the Ala Moana mall in Honolulu yesterday for the Leopard launch. No, I didn’t actually buy Leopard (see last post - plus, Amazon.com has it for a cheaper price with no tax). I did, however, get a nice Leopard T-shirt (as did my wife), and I picked up a LaCie d2 Quadra 500GB external drive and iLife'08. We only waited for about an hour and a half. Was that worth a free Leopard T-shirt? Yeah, sure. Of course, there are already people selling their shirts on Craigslist and Ebay. Last I checked, they were going for between $30 and $50 … but I’m keeping mine.
And here are a few photos from the opening. It was a lot of fun. There were probably about 200 people in line at the opening bell at 6pm (although I couldn’t actually see the end of the line, so it may have been more) and enough security to manage a sizable rock concert. It was a bit disconcerting as we entered the store. We were about 20 or 30 deep in the line, so as we were part of the first group to enter, we were greeted by a sea of Apple employees clapping and ecstatically cheering for us. Very energetic. Disconcerting. I couldn’t believe how many Apple employees they squeezed into this little store.
I was impressed, though, by the organization of the event. As I walked in, I was asked if I was there to buy Leopard. I said no, but I wanted a hard drive … and my escort pointed to the back of the store and said, ‘John will take care of you.’ Sure enough, there was John at the back of the store, grinning and waving at me to come on down. Now that’s customer service. Three Apple people tried to grab me on the way out to explain how Leopard worked, but I declined. I’ll come back when there’s more room to hang out.
