Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Chitown_Mike on September 22, 2014 at 8:11am

It is things like this (and many others) that make me happy I despise all Apple products and refuse to buy myself anything that company makes.  I lost friends who were fanatical about Apple this or that, and instead of ribbing each other (I like Android) they would get overzealous and confrontational.

It's almost like Apple has its own "religion" with how bigoted and zealous people can be, IMO.

Permalink Reply by Duppie on September 22, 2014 at 9:16am

I find it amusing and disconcerting at the same time.

Amusing because people are prepared to pay a premium for a product that you can buy at MSRP and have it delivered in two weeks. Enough people so that there is what looks like a scalpers market. There is not a limited supply of iPhones. This is not like a concert, let's say Pearl Jam @ Wrigley Field where supply of tickets was absolute and finite.

Its disconcerting to once again see a certain subset of recent immigrants being taken advantage of. If you are like the folks in the video, middle aged immigrants with little or no understanding of English and no particular skills, you end up being taken advantage of over and over again. These people often make less than minimum wage in sweatshop like environments. A lot of them scrape by on support from family and social services. 

Permalink Reply by S on September 22, 2014 at 9:29am

Most of the black/grey market operations probably involve taking these iphones and shipping them to hong kong or china or another country where apple doesn't sell iphones.  I'd be surprised if any of those phones were resold in the US.  Alternatively, the phones could be sold in countries where import duties make buying the iphones an expensive proposition.  I've heard of south americans financing trips to the US to buy a bunch of electronics and reselling them at home.  The profits from the sales are more than enough to pay for the flights.  

Some of the people in line are probably being taken advantage of but others are probably in it to score a bunch of cash by reselling them elsewhere.

Permalink Reply by Duppie on September 22, 2014 at 10:00am

iPhones in general, yes. iPhone 6, no. At least not in China.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/iphone-6-o...

rwein5 said:

iPhones are most assuredly already sold legitimately in China/Hong Kong.

S said:

Most of the black/grey market operations probably involve taking these iphones and shipping them to hong kong or china or another country where apple doesn't sell iphones.  I'd be surprised if any of those phones were resold in the US.  Alternatively, the phones could be sold in countries where import duties make buying the iphones an expensive proposition.  I've heard of south americans financing trips to the US to buy a bunch of electronics and reselling them at home.  The profits from the sales are more than enough to pay for the flights.  

Some of the people in line are probably being taken advantage of but others are probably in it to score a bunch of cash by reselling them elsewhere.

Permalink Reply by Haddon on September 22, 2014 at 1:20pm

I'm fairly neutral on line squatting, my guess is the people waiting at the front of the line could use the money they received.

I'm a bit more perturbed with the notion of so many public police essentially detailed to manage lines outside a private enterprise. A very rich company selling expensive products to well off people and much of the security for this is provided at tax payer expense. This would be the more irking of the details in here though it's likely the sales tax that came in took care of all of this.

H

Permalink Reply by S on September 22, 2014 at 1:25pm

I did, they got paid but it doesn't show how much.  The payout didn't look like a huge amount given unlocked iphones are 600-900+ and that those people were sitting out on the street for 12+ hours to a day or two.

h' 1.0 said:

Watch the video to the end.

S said:

 

Some of the people in line are probably being taken advantage of but others are probably in it to score a bunch of cash by reselling them elsewhere.

Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on September 23, 2014 at 8:47am

I've had my Nexus 4 for 2 years now.  Same phone, except that the OS doesn't suck and I'm allowed to change things around in my settings as I see fit. 

It also has the same faults, WiFi connection issues and excessive battery draining.  You would think if Apple were going to copy what Google did 2 years later they'd at least leave out the bugs.

Permalink Reply by Chitown_Mike on September 24, 2014 at 10:05am

My Galaxy SII is going on 2 years since I've had it, not to mention it was released more than a year before I bought it.  When I get bored with it I'll change the ROM on it because I rooted it 2 days after I got it, more often than not it out performs my friend's iPhones.  After seeing the microcosm that Apple traps it's users in, I have no interest in going to their products.

Battery life could be better but whatever.

Self-sealing Stembolt said:

I've had my Nexus 4 for 2 years now.  Same phone, except that the OS doesn't suck and I'm allowed to change things around in my settings as I see fit. 

It also has the same faults, WiFi connection issues and excessive battery draining.  You would think if Apple were going to copy what Google did 2 years later they'd at least leave out the bugs.

Permalink Reply by curt(is) locke on November 4, 2014 at 7:35am

I guess it good to have something to be "happy" about.  For you, it's despising all Apple products.  And that makes you happy??  You've actually lost "friends" over such nonsense??

Chitown_Mike said:

It is things like this (and many others) that make me happy I despise all Apple products and refuse to buy myself anything that company makes.  I lost friends who were fanatical about Apple this or that, and instead of ribbing each other (I like Android) they would get overzealous and confrontational.

It's almost like Apple has its own "religion" with how bigoted and zealous people can be, IMO.

Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on November 4, 2014 at 7:54am

Those weren't "friends."

At least not if he doesn't make friends with braindead zombies they weren't.

lolz