Categories
Archive

Another Reader's Take on the Apple Store Opening in Milwaukee


On Saturday my son and I joined several hundred Apple aficiandos standing in line for the opening of the Apple Store at Mayfair Mall in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The first folks in line arrived at 1am with camp chairs and blankets, and were permitted to wait all night for the 10am Grand Opening. The gathering became festive, almost like a family party at times as people enjoyed making new friends and comparing notes. Folks were enjoying coffee and Cinnabons as they chatted and waited for the black corrugated door to be raised. There were PowerBooks, iBooks, and PDAs being used all up and down the line. The reactions of the merchants whose stores we were sort of blocking was great surprise. They had never seen a line like this ever at this mall. An employee from the area Gateway store walked down the line counting bodies and got some good natured ribbing. Could it have been a reaction to Gateway’s current tv commercials?

After waiting 90 minutes, my son and I reached the entrance (one side of which bears a resemblance to the top of a Wallstreet PowerBook) and were greeted with smiles from the store’s employees. The store is smaller than the one I saw at the Mall of America up in Minneapolis, but was packed with lots of goodies to try. When we finished our shopping, we received Apple Store t-shirts from an associate at the door. One older gentleman we had chatted with during our wait in line asked my son if he had a brother or sister at home who might like the t-shirt since he “wasn’t a t-shirt kind of guy”. That’s the kind of warmth we saw during the whole morning. At the time we left the store the line to enter still stretched 2/3 of the length of the mall. Not bad at all!

The tech reporter from the local paper seemed rather surprised at the turnout. He had been contacted by Apple Corporate about the opening and said he almost didn’t cover it. Here’s a link to his article about the opening from Sunday’s Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel newpaper.

My only gripe about the experience was that I wanted to purchase the AppleCare plan for my current iBook and was told the could not sell it to me unless I bought a computer at the same time. My son (age 11) thinks it’s terrific now that when his mom goes to the mall he can go to the Apple Store instead of the boring women’s clothing stores. I think I agree with him!

By Jason O'Grady

Founded the PowerPage in 1995.