The Apple of Their iPhones

The New York Post has an article today on the mania––in the truest sense of the word––surrounding the eventual release of Apple's iPhone, a device that is a phone, digicam, organizer, Internet browser, and iPod wrapped into one sleek-looking package. The Post found people willing to camp, pay, or have sex in trade for the latest and greatest in soon-to-be-ubiquitous personal technology.

Harris Levinson, 34, a video production supervisor for Conde Nast, is paying his brother and two friends $150 each to stand in line at Apple stores in three different states to make sure he gets at least one.

“I have to cover my bases,” said Levinson, who’s dispatched phone-buying surrogates to New York, Kentucky and Tennessee. “What if one of them doesn’t work?”

Levinson's other strategies included "jokingly" asking one of his female friends to sleep with an Apple Genius in trade for an iPhone and handing off his business card to an AT&T employee with a $100 bill attached. Neither gambits worked, unsurprisingly. A plastic surgeon from Long Island is offering to pay for people to wait in line overnight in order to get him a phone. He wants one right before he goes on vacation so he'll have time to "play around with it." If you're going on a 4th of July vacation with a Dr. Harris, get ready for some fun times.

A 21-year-old Pace University student is prepared to camp out on the sidewalk in order to get his iPhone. "It really makes a social statement. I want to be the first to have it.” It does indeed make a social statement.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Dave Hogarty in News on June 24, 2007 11:55 AM

Comments [rss]

guest

Wow ! I mean that's really amazing to me . People will stand online for a product that hasn't even been tested on the market yet and shell out $[150] a pop for it . Me, I'll wait for the iphone to circumnavigate the market first before I go out and spend that kind of money for it . By the way, The phone only works if you sign-up with AT&T . So what happens if say you have service from Sprint, OR Verizon ? Ur screwed that's what ! Posted By; "Still Not Amused"

guest

It only has a max of 8GB of memory--that's so so so tiny, people are going to be disappointed when they start trying to upload their music collections. Plus, you have to log onto the internet through AT+T's shitty internet connection. Flashy; yes... functional; not just yet.

JMH

Heh, [19].

guest

I love my iPod and my MacBook, but people are going over the top for this thing. It's a phone, relax.

And it's way too expensive, however, considering the RAZR was $500 when it first came out and it was just a normal phone, not even a "smartphone", I guess it's a better 500 bucks spent in comparison.

guest

baaaah. baaaah. fucking sheep.

ed_Extinct

also, they very fact that apple does not have enough iPhones to go around in the first wave is disturbing. does anyone remember the fallout from the PS3 release?

ed_Extinct

#27... so right. but you forgot to mention that whn you're all paid up and you cancel your service, they still send you the bill for years. idiots!

guest

AT&T had the worst billing practices of all the cell phone carriers. You'll get your bill one month, then you'll get your next bill 3 months later.

guest

I think the iphone is surely more impressive than just it looks. Silicon Valley Entrepreneur & Strategy Consultant, Sramana Mitra on her blog had mentioned how the iPhone would affect the future. Please read iPhone and the Future.

ohplease

#4 pegged it.

And with service exclusively from AT&T-now-it's-Cingular-no-wait-it's-AT&T-again i would run not walk away from this thing.

guest

$600 for iPhone...well go ahead it's your money.

CNN Report: According to Asia, the iPhone Sucks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_sZmKH25vM

guest

i used to be on of these "i gotta have it first" individuals. I wouldn't mind dropping a few hundred dollars for the latest gadget - not because I had the enough money to afford it, but because there is a sense of eliteness to owning something new and holding it out on the train or elevator and knowing people are admiring it.

i don't know what happened, but with this iphone launch, that need to have the latest gadget just sorta went away.

#'s [1], [4], and [18] said it best... that's my comment on this matter...

guest

Dave Hogarty is officially the resident pun title writer of Gothamist.

guest

Ummm, NO, an emphatic NO to all of the above.

LV? Gucci? the eighties called they want their luxury goods back.

Calm down there gordon gecko.

guest

It is $600. So what? Don't some of you hypocrites buy $600+ leather handbags? Gucci, LV, Tiffany, Rolex, and all those other overpriced luxury items instead of Target or Kmart? First class tickets on planes? $2000/month rent for a 300 sqft apartment instead of living in New Jersey? $1 million for a 1 bedroom in Soho? A $1000 baby stroller? Give me a break. I'll say you are a dumb a** for spending $3.00/lb for grapes at Whole Food when you can get it at $1.50/lb in Chinatown. To each his own so stop crying.

Apple and AT&T had the iPhone tested for 3 months prior in the street. So you aren't total guinea pigs.

Oh yes Bill Gates is so generous that Windows Vista is the only operating system allowed to be installed on any new PC. They have discontinued Windows XP when for 98% of all homes and corporations would work perfectly fine with XP. With that much revenue and stock options, I too would be donating money to save the world and to get my name engraved on some stone and to be praised by the right people at the right institutions with friends in the right places.

guest

Good one, number 17.

I like the cut of your jib.

shedwa

I'll wait out the bugs and the prices and the lines. Get me a 2 or 3 generation that will have more features at the same cost, as is Apple's business plan.

guest

$600 is nothing to some of us.

$600 is nothing to me either but I don't like to piss money away. Nor do I need to show off through conspicuous consumption. You must be new money.

guest

well i'm getting one. go ahead losers and use your razr pos. $600 is nothing to some of us. a drop in the bucket. if everyone had one it wouldn't be an elite phone.