Six days after they began queuing up to buy iPhone 3Gs outside Apple’s (AAPL) flagship Fifth Avenue store in New York City — hoping to set a Guinness record and garner publicity for the causes of sustainability and locally-grown food (see here) — the sunburned eco-warriors of TheWhoFarm finally have some company.
At 7:00 a.m. Thursday morning, 25 hours before the new iPhone goes on sale in the United States, four self-described Apple fanboys – all members of Montclair (N.J.) High School’s class of 2008 – showed up, blue canvas folding chairs in tow, to take their places in line: Nos. 11, 12, 13 and 14.
These young men better fit the stereotype of someone who might spend a day and a night – never mind seven days and seven nights – camping out in front of an Apple Store for a chance to buy the latest gadget out of Cupertino.
Matt Dodd, 17, is a registered iPhone developer, and although he says his programming skills aren’t what they’d have to be to write a full-fledged commercial application, he cared enough about the iPhone platform to go to San Francisco in January for Macworld 2008 and again in June for the World Wide Developers Conference. He’s definitely going to buy an iPhone 3G Friday.
Geoffrey Kaicher, 17, is pretty sure he’ll buy one Friday — if he can get someone to sign for it (he lacks a credit card). His pals Kyle Hobin, 18, and Matt Rosenhein, 18, alas, will not.
So why spend more than 25 hours in line?
It’s a fanboy thing. “I didn’t get to go to Macworld or WWDC,” says Rosenhein. “This is my way of being part of an Apple event.”