With the iPhone 6 launch been and gone it’s time to reflect on what has been undoubtably Apple’s largest ever product launch.
I’ll get this bit out of the way first; I don’t have an iPhone 6 yet.
Unfortunately, I had pre-arranged to get my iPhone of choice (A 6 Plus, 64GB in Space Grey) at my local Phones 4U on the morning of launch. Having arranged this on the Friday, there was no need to order a device directly through Apple’s pre-order system. Then Monday the 15th happened. After loosing O2 earlier in the year and Vodafone some time afterwards, EE decided to cancel their contract with Phones 4U, effectively, putting them out of business. In iPhone launch week. The busiest week for phone sales all year.
It was at this point that a decision was taken to go Sim Free and try and get a device on launch morning from my closet Apple store. Arriving at 5:20am, I and a friend discovered a queue of over 120 people in front of us. Some had clearly been there over night, but it was at this stage we still felt confident about getting our desired handsets.
As we queued, it started to become clear, that many of the people in line with us were not there to buy handsets as rabid Apple fans, but there to buy them to immediately sell them on at a profit. This was, to say the least, annoying but hardly unexpected.
As the morning moved on, the team from Apple and a group of Bouncers came to filter the line in to a two by two queue. As well as this worked, there were still issues. Apple staff were walking along, calling out for people who had pre-ordered and taking them to the holding pens at the front.
We shuffled forward and as well got to the entrance to the shopping centre, the time struck 8am. Some 14 minutes later, a member of Apple staff came down to the entrance to inform us all that they were totally out of 6 Pluses. In 14 minutes, an entire product line, sold out. Well, we left the queue to enact a back-up plan to try and get a handset. This was to no avail.
After this experience, it’s clear that Apple need to reconsider how they handle the ‘flippers’ on launch morning and try to stem the tide of handsets finding their way to people paying far more than what Apple actually charge for them. This video shows the shady side of what happened at the New York SoHo Store.
So as this article goes live, I’m still waiting on my iPhone 6 Plus, which means the Tame Geek review is some distance off.
What I did manage to get though was some hands on time with a demo model with no security trappings. To that end, I can supply the following quick impressions:
- It’s big, but not as big as I thought it would feel
- ‘Reachability’ will be a god send
- The Plus’s camera is great and very fast
- The build quality is great
- The Retina HD display looks tremendous
- I really want my handset to ship before the estimated 15th of October!
