Alex Vadhin of Cupertino camped out Thursday night outside this AT&T store waiting to be one of the first to buy the iPhone 5. Well, his father actually paid for it. "Like I went to school and then everyone was like, 'Oh the iPhone 5, yeah.' So, it makes me cool," Vadhin said. Ethan Nagel of gfoster City bought two, a his and a hers. "Oh yeah, obsessively," he told ABC7 News, asked if he was going to play with it tonight.
When Apple's flagship San Francisco store opened Friday morning, Charlie Hufnagel was ready. Someone hired him through the website TaskRabbit where you can bid on small jobs. "I'm being paid $1,500 and I got here at 10 a.m. Monday morning," he said. But once TaskRabbit figured out he was getting attention at the front of the line, the company considered him a billboard and slapped a t-shirt on him."They found out that I was doing this and they were like 'promotional opportunities…' They brought me some signage. They've been helping feed me with burritos and stuff like that. It's sort of like corporate sponsorship almost," he said.
People followed the yearly ritual waiting in long lines and yes, there were complaints of imperfections and one big change. For example, the iPhone 5 requires a new charger which is not compatible with the iPad or other iPhones. "Now, this huge problem of either getting adaptors or buying all this new equipment and that's going to take a while to replace all that stuff in my house," Nagel said.
Apple's mapping system now replaces Google maps. Technology analyst Larry Magid says there have been several problems. "Like putting buildings where they don't belong, turning a farm into an airport. Apple should be embarrassed by this and they should fix it as soon as they can," he said. Still, Magid was happy when UPS delivered the iPhone 5 to his house Friday morning, glitches and all.
The complains have gone viral. Apple released a statement saying, "We appreciate all the customer feedback and are working hard to make the customer experience even better."
