Despite a chilly Friday night, diehard Apple fanbois camped overnight in Rundle Mall for Saturday’s opening of Adelaide's first Apple Store.
By 7am, about 100 people were queuing before the glass-fronted store, which has been reported to bear a price tag of $2.5 million - although where that amount of money has gone is hard to fathom.
My son Luke and I joined the excitement at a much more gentile 9.45am, giving us 15 minutes to watch the pre-opening shenanigans as Apple’s so-called Geniuses in their distinctive blue t-shirts jogged around the adoring masses, high-fiving folk on the perimeter.
About 40 minutes later, a rather disgruntled Lukey and I finally made it through the front door, with half a dozen Geniuses on each side, cheering us in, handing out more high fives along with a pair of man-sized black Apple t-shirts (Luke may use his for a tent :-).]
Once inside the cavernous space of the store, we weaved our way through the crowds of Apple fans and ever-smiling Geniuses (apparently Apple airfreighted in a bunch of veterans from interstate Apple Stores for the launch) before Luke spotted an orange headset he needed.
I got out my iPhone, downloaded the Apple Store app, scanned the barcode and then entered my iTunes password to purchase the headset with Apple’s touted Ezypay system. When it requested my “security code” I entered my card’s PIN without success. After trying a second card to no avail, I asked a Genius who said “security code” referred to the three-digit CVV code on the back of my card.
When I went to enter the correct code, the new store’s payment system crashed from the onslaught of first-day shoppers, so I handed the Genius my credit card and made a traditional swipe-and-sign purchase.
After Lukey and I left the Apple Store, we dropped in at Apple resellers JB HiFi, where Apple had a couple of black t-shirted team members mopping up the spillage of any consumers who balked at the crowd or the cost of the retailing mothership.
Nothing, it seems, goes to waste in the Apple brand ecosystem.
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