I want to go to there - The Story of How I Touched an iPad2

I don't know how many of you have fallen for the hype that Apple has caused. If you raised your hand in solidarity, I'm with ya!

As there is probably almost nothing hotter than being in the Apple store on a Thursday night, dancing with myself, (so to speak), I took myself down to the Apple Store on Stockton in downtown San Francisco last week.

And proceeded to drool.

A lot....

Turned out that an unamused tween tossed the gadget down on the based connected to the wooden table Apply had their little beauties securely connected to just moments before I reached it. A bit disbelieving, I looked around to see if there was a line to touch the iPad2...

... then I realised I didn't care and skipped over to give it a go anyway. Sorry, would-be-iPad2-holders! Mama's gotta have her test drive!

My grubby little hands all over this glorious beast of a tablet - nerd JERK on an Apple iPad2

HOLY BALLS!!!

Oh man... OH MAN! So many reasons to love the iPad2!

• It doesn't hurt my dainty-money-maker-wrists! 
• Using it is really intuitive! 
• My fingers aren't too chubby to type on the giant on-screen keyboard!
• Everything on it looks SHINY!!!
• It's white like my displays at shows!
• It will finally make my business portable:
• using at new I Heart Art: SF meetings
• using at LIDL meetings
• show people what my business looks like on Etsy
• catch up on Etsy sales / emails while I'm out & about
• My new Check-Out with Square for Maker Faire is gonna be baller!

Although I was already completely convinced that I needed this brand-new shiny tool/toy, I had a lot of questions to ask. :)

So I flagged down one of those more-than-mildly-attractive hipster boys in the bright blue shirts that works for Apple and fired away! 

Questions fired ranged anywhere from:

"How many iPads do you usually get?

We're getting them everyday now, except for Sunday morning, so it can range from anywhere from 5 to a couple hundred. Since we're the biggest store in San Francisco, we usually get priority shipping, though we never know how many we're actually getting til we get here and open the boxes.

"Based on that, do you reckon it's worth it to stand in line at 4 AM for an iPad2? Or do you think it's better to order online, since the wait is now down to 2-3 weeks?"

Well, that's all based on what you feel your time is worth and how urgent your need is. Traditionally, waiting in line early morning has kind of been like a lottery - if you're here at 4 AM, chances are you're at the front of the line. If you're at the front of the line, chances are you get a voucher from me to be able to pick from the iPad2s we've just received and are free to come back at 8:30 AM when I open the store. But we can't guarantee that we'll have the iPad2 past opening (some people think that voucher means they can come back after lunch), the exact model & make you want. If you want to guarantee that, you might want to try ordering online. But at lot of people don't want to wait that long, so that's why we're still getting 4 AM lines almost a month after the iPad2 launch date.

Damn - those were very good answers. And he even helped take me for a test drive - using the built-in navigation system to show me where else I could try getting an iPad2 if I felt like it.

So, after approving of all the things the nice hipster-clerk had to show/tell me, my fate was sealed.

Coming Wednesday, 13 April 2011:

What the WHAT?! - The Story of How I Went Cray-Cray & Stood in Line @ the Apple Store at 4 AM