kuh • pain´• kah

If you know me well, you know that I’m essentially an Apple Fanboy. I mean, I own an AppleTV for crying out loud. (It sucks, BTW).  But you also know that I’m not blind to Apple’s faults.  For example, I routinely go off about OS lockdown and carrier lock on the iPhone, the endlessly shifting landscape of hardware input formats (buy many cables?), and Apple’s inability to listen to what their most loyal consumers are asking for, opting instead to deliver simply what they think we want.

Well, today I’m pissed off, and if I had a viable alternative, I wouldn’t buy an iPhone.  But there is no viable alternative so I’m (re)ordering my iPhone 4.  Please, do not try to argue with me about Blackberry, Palm, or Android.  Especially Android.  The iPhone is the only acceptable smartphone experience in the game. Period. (Do NOT leave me comments about this point, I’ll write another blog post about it if you want to hear my thoughts on that)

So, why am I pissed off?  Well, like any good Apple Loyalist, I pre-ordered my iPhone 4.  I was up at 5a Pacific when the online Apple Store opened, and I seamlessly placed my order for my shiny new toy.  At the end of the process I was offered a choice: pickup or delivery.  It stated (I’m paraphrasing) that I would have a reservation and be able to go to the store and pick up my phone, so I decided that rather than incur additional shipping nonsense (extra packaging, possible delays, addition carbon output from delivery trucks, etc), that I would take the reservation and pick up my iPhone at the Apple Store.  The Apple Store is just a few blocks from my office, so it wouldn’t be a huge deal to get up a bit early and stop by the Store before heading to work.

This was a stupid decision.

Apparently, to Apple, having a reservation means “everybody show up at the same time”, so having a reservation is completely meaningless.  Instead of one line at the Apple Store, there are now two lines, and interestingly, the line for reservations was LONGER than the regular line.  So when I arrived this morning for my “reservation” I found the line to be 3/4-way around the block.

Now listen. I’m sure some of you are thinking “oh, right, you just thought you would walk right into the Apple Store, pick up your iPhone and walk out? On Release Day? Yeah, right”.  Well, no, of course that’s not what I thought at all.  What I thought was “I have a reservation for 7am, and probably so do a lot of other people, but they can only handle so many an hour, so I can’t have to wait more than an hour or so to get my phone.”

See, here’s what I would think you would do if you were taking “reservations”.  You would do it like a restaurant.  You would know your capacity (Number of dedicated Apple Store staff on hand), you would know your throughput (how long it takes, on average, each Staffer to process an new iPhone), you would do some math to give yourself some slippage, and then you would fill up that many slots per hour.  So, let’s pretend:

Apple Store SF has, say, 30 Blue Shirts dedicated solely to iPhone reservations.
Each Blue Shirt can do 3 iPhones an hour. (20 minutes each)

Therefore it would be safe to assume that you would be able to process 90-100 iPhones an hour. THEREfore, you would give out 100 reservations for 7a, 100 reservations for 8a, and so forth.  This is the expectation you set by calling it a “reservation”.  Instead, it appears that Apple took this approach instead:

We’ll have 2,400 iPhones in stock on opening day, so we’ll give the first 2,400 people a reservation.  (I’m guessing on the numbers, of course).  So let’s do this math backwards, if you can process 100 iPhones an hour, and you have 2,400 iPhones, that means it will take you 24 hours, non stop, at pace, to clear out that many iPhones.  Well, last time I checked, the Apple Store was not open 24 hours.  Let’s say they only have 1,200 on hand.  That’s 12 hours.  I think the Apple Store (today) is open 7a-7p (12 hours) so they could reasonably expect to move all 1,200 iPhones in 12 hours, so reservations make sense, especially if you stagger them by hour.  Seems like a reasonable expectation, no?

But the point here is, why make “reservations” and give you this idea that that somehow means something if instead you’re just going to have yet another free-for-all under some false pretense? I thought the point of the reservations system was to alleviate lines and waiting and mayhem? I made a reservation because I don’t want to wait in a retardedly long line.  I made a reservation because I didn’t want to get up at 4a (probably still way too late) and sit outside in the cold and dark.  I made a reservation because I wanted to do my small part to save the planet, by using my feet to pick up my iPhone, rather than a UPS truck.  I made a reservation because I expected it to BE A RESERVATION.  I mean, I was awake at 1:00am working, so if I’d really wanted to, I could have gone down and gotten in line then.  But I didn’t because I HAD A RESERVATION FOR 7AM!

So, Fuck You Apple, and Fuck You Steve Jobs.  Once again, ONCE AGAIN you have fucked me but yet you’re STILL going to get my money.  Why? Because your product Kicks Ass.  But you really have a lot to learn about being good to your loyal customers, especially you loyalest of customers.  I’m not the first person, and I won’t be the last that you Fuck, and still come back.  But like any abusive relationship, one day the sex won’t be so good anymore, I’ll tire of being treated like shit and ignored, and whatever after-the-fact apologies you offer, shiny gifts you try to appease me with, or kind words you speak that always seemed to work in the past, it won’t matter because it’ll be just one too many times, the love will be gone, and I’ll want your shit out, my keys back, I will look back and wonder what I ever saw in you in the first place, and I will never EVER want to speak to you again, no matter what.

Am I clear?