There's no denying that people love their Apple products. Just last Wednesday, Apple announced the third generation iPad and it took no time for the pre-orders to sell out online. The expected arrival time of iPad online orders is now two to three weeks from the order date. Apple is saying that demand is "off the charts."
Sporting the same size, 9.7-inch display with a quadrupled resolution, the new iPad packs over three million pixels and touts the highest resolution of any tablet out there. It also bears 4G LTE connectivity, a A5X dual-core chip with quad-core graphics, 1GB RAM (double that of the last two models), a much-improved 5-megapixel camera, voice dictation and hotspot capabilities.
Despite it not interesting me a whole lot, it was pretty clear that it was a pretty significant upgrade from the previous model. And this incredibly high demand is something we all saw coming from a mile away.
As per usual with highly anticipated Apple products, though, there is sure to be a slew of stock at authorized electronics retailers and Apple stores around the world on launch day. Problem is, you almost always have to get there very early to even have a chance at getting your hands on the new iDevice.
This time around, two guys in London, named Ali and Zohaib, have been camping out in front of an Apple store since Saturday. The new iPad's street date is March 16, so these two have another four days to wait. And they're hardly the first to set up camp outside Apple stores nearly a week ahead of time to wait it out and be first in line. Thousands upon thousands have been doing this since the very first iPhone and each subsequent iPhone and iPad launch since.
More recently, Samsung has turned it into a bit of a slight against Apple in their latest marketing campaign. But let's be honest, every manufacturer out there, including Samsung, would love nothing more than their loyal customers and fans to do the exact same thing.
The question is: would you ever take off work to wait in line for a new product on launch day? What about multiple days of work and/or school? A week? Is anything worth being first in line for?
It's a bit of a trick question if you ask me. I wouldn't technically be taking off work for it. It could technically be considered work. And, with the aid of a hotspot and a power source, I can work from anywhere. Still, there is nothing in the world (in terms of electronics) that important to me. Plus, I have a few locations that sell electronics that few people know or think of on a big launch day.
I suited up to fight the crowds to find an iPad 2 last year. I went out at about 4:00 PM (the iPad 2 was set to launch at 5:00 PM) and my first stop was Best Buy, where they were handing out tickets for their stock and I was the next person in line when they handed the very last ticket to the person in front of me. In other words, unless someone with a ticket in front of me decided not to buy their iPad, I wasn't going to get one from that store. So I went to a store that was walking distance away and not a single person was there. I waited until 5:00 and was the first (and only) person to walk out of that store with an iPad 2.
I doubt I'll go out this year. And I doubt I will ever be that lucky again. Simply put, though, there is no device that could make me want to wait for more than an hour or so, much less a week in a tent on a slab of concrete. Even though I'm a habitual early adopter, waiting for a device to come back in stock doesn't bother me too much.
That said, I know there are a lot of you out there who missed the online pre-orders and want your iPad on launch day. Many of you sold your old iPad to by a new one and are dying without it. Will any of you be going out to fight the crowds on Friday? Will any of you be camping out days in advance? Are any of you out there camping now and reading this? Tell us in the comments below.
Image via Engadget
