iPhone, day 6: line down to 2.5 hours
The grayhaired man in a suit and the young lady in a sweatshirt agreed: They'd queued up outside Apple's San Francisco flagship store at 10:30 this morning — 30 minutes after the store opened. At 1 p.m. they'd finally gotten to the front of the line, which still crawls because of the time it takes to activate each phone at the counter. The line today is nothing like Friday's opening-day cast. No camera hogs, no activists, no TV crews or I'm-subverting-the-MSM bloggers. Just a bunch of footsore consumers patiently proving that the force is still with Steve Jobs after all. The few people I approached didn't really want to talk — they were just there to buy a phone and waiting longer than they'd expected. Did His Steveness manufacture the shortage of phones and the long wait lines to build buzz? Here's a hint: No, that'd be stupid.