Apple stores...
Last night I ventured down Regent Street to the Apple Megastore. I wanted to sit in on the 'Switch at Six' session for people moving to Apple computers from PCs (or elsewhere). It was supposed to start at 6pm but by 6.15 nothing was happening then some poor smuch came out to explain that the session had been cancelled due to the special event following on at 7pm, some world eco-system environmental lecture (which I sat through). Thing is there were all these people sat waiting, I presumed, for the switch at 6 thing. Mostly typing away on their laptops waiting for the get-go. Then it dawned on me that they were there for the free wireless connectivity and the nice chairs. When the eco-system lecture started the dude in front of me forgot to turn his speakers down so it blasted out some random piece of music. The women next to him was none to pleased. "I'm trying to listen to what she's saying" pointing to the presenter. Then the irate women returned to tapping away at her email.
Errr, shouldn't you be paying attention to the lecture then, missus? Hmnnn.
Seems to me there's a bunch of free-loading going on in these stores. When I was in the one in Miami it took me ages to get served it was so busy, again mostly with kids typing away their emails on the laptops tagged to the desks. Ok, it's one thing to let people inspect the equipment but giving it all up for free to get people into the loop seems a bit excessive.
In fact, when I left the lecture when it finished I had to excuse myself past a women sitting at the end of the isle (typing on her email). I half caught her tutting under her breath as I pushed past. I really felt like saying "He lady, this isn't your living room" (she'd turned up 2 minutes before the end of the lecture and there was nothing scheduled to follow). Arrrgh. So much spoon feeding these days. Jeez.
So this was my first bad experienc of Apple Inc or whatever they're called now. Still, who am I to pass judgement on people, I did check my own email there (for free) before the lecture started, but atleast I had the descency to listen to the message being delivered, and it was rather good.
In other news I got myself booked for New York yesterday. Holy shit!