Ed Yourdon
Shoo! Shoo! Go away!
Waiting for iPhone 3g - Jul 18, 2008 - 095
Note: this photo has been published in an Aug 12, 2008 (German) blog article entitled Der Apple Club." And it was published as an illustration in an undated (Dec 2009) "Only Jewelry" blog, in a posting titled "Apple anklet." And on Jun 6, 2010, the photo was published in a German blog titled "Für eine neue Esskultur: Wohlbefinden ersetzt Wohlstand." It was also published in a May 31, 2011 neue-lebensmittel blog, with the same caption and detailed notes that I had written for this Flickr page.
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On the corner of Fifth Avenue and 60th Street -- i.e., at the opposite end of the block where the iPhone fans were waiting in line -- this young couple staked out a spot with a sign that said "Feed us." I gave them some money; I hope they did use it to buy some food ...
But after a while, some nearby cops decided that it wasn't really appropriate for the couple to be panhandling in quite such a dramatic fashion. So they very politely asked them to gather up their stuff and move on ... which they couple did, without much objection...
Roughly three weeks after I originally uploaded this photo, it had been viewed so many times that it is now among the top-ten "most viewed" of all 10,000+ public photos on my Flickr site -- and three people have marked it as a "favorite". I'm flattered by the attention, but also humbled: I have no idea what it is that makes the photo so popular. The couple shown here had nothing to do with the main focus of this collection of photos -- i.e., people waiting in line to get a new Apple iPhone3G -- and probably had no interest at all in the phone. I now wish I had spoken to them, to find out who they were, where they came from, what they were planning to do when they left (as they did shortly after this picture was taken, because the cops shooed them away). And now, three weeks later, I have no idea where they have gone, or what they are doing ... or whether anyone actually did feed them.
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Silly me: after the iPhone 3g had been out for a full week, I thought I could stroll right into the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue & 59th Street in mid-town Manhattan, and simply buy one without any muss, fuss, bother, or delay.
But when I arrived at 11 AM, I found a line of approximately 150 people waiting outside in the broiling sun, not seeming to move forward at all; it turned out that the Apple store "concierge" folks were letting them in in groups of ten, when the previous ten had been taken care of. When I asked the woman how long she had been waiting, she said, "Four hours" -- she had arrived at 7 AM, having already determined that the AT&T stores were sold out throughout New Jersey and Connecticut.
Well, I'm a gadget freak and a Mac fan, but there's a limit to my passion for such things; four hours was just too much. So instead, I decided to take a bunch of pictures of the people who were in the line. Of course, I have no idea whethere the people queued up in front of Apple stores in other cities (or at other stores here in NYC) are similar to this group ... but I'm inclined to think that they are. And if that's true, then the demographics of this group -- in terms of age, gender, nationality, ethnic groups, etc. -- is particularly intriguing. I saw only one guy dressed in a corporate uniform of suit and tie; Apple may be trying to break into the "enterprise" market, but that's not who was standing in line for all those hours in the sun...
Shoo! Shoo! Go away!
Waiting for iPhone 3g - Jul 18, 2008 - 095
Note: this photo has been published in an Aug 12, 2008 (German) blog article entitled Der Apple Club." And it was published as an illustration in an undated (Dec 2009) "Only Jewelry" blog, in a posting titled "Apple anklet." And on Jun 6, 2010, the photo was published in a German blog titled "Für eine neue Esskultur: Wohlbefinden ersetzt Wohlstand." It was also published in a May 31, 2011 neue-lebensmittel blog, with the same caption and detailed notes that I had written for this Flickr page.
***************************************************
On the corner of Fifth Avenue and 60th Street -- i.e., at the opposite end of the block where the iPhone fans were waiting in line -- this young couple staked out a spot with a sign that said "Feed us." I gave them some money; I hope they did use it to buy some food ...
But after a while, some nearby cops decided that it wasn't really appropriate for the couple to be panhandling in quite such a dramatic fashion. So they very politely asked them to gather up their stuff and move on ... which they couple did, without much objection...
Roughly three weeks after I originally uploaded this photo, it had been viewed so many times that it is now among the top-ten "most viewed" of all 10,000+ public photos on my Flickr site -- and three people have marked it as a "favorite". I'm flattered by the attention, but also humbled: I have no idea what it is that makes the photo so popular. The couple shown here had nothing to do with the main focus of this collection of photos -- i.e., people waiting in line to get a new Apple iPhone3G -- and probably had no interest at all in the phone. I now wish I had spoken to them, to find out who they were, where they came from, what they were planning to do when they left (as they did shortly after this picture was taken, because the cops shooed them away). And now, three weeks later, I have no idea where they have gone, or what they are doing ... or whether anyone actually did feed them.
********************
Silly me: after the iPhone 3g had been out for a full week, I thought I could stroll right into the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue & 59th Street in mid-town Manhattan, and simply buy one without any muss, fuss, bother, or delay.
But when I arrived at 11 AM, I found a line of approximately 150 people waiting outside in the broiling sun, not seeming to move forward at all; it turned out that the Apple store "concierge" folks were letting them in in groups of ten, when the previous ten had been taken care of. When I asked the woman how long she had been waiting, she said, "Four hours" -- she had arrived at 7 AM, having already determined that the AT&T stores were sold out throughout New Jersey and Connecticut.
Well, I'm a gadget freak and a Mac fan, but there's a limit to my passion for such things; four hours was just too much. So instead, I decided to take a bunch of pictures of the people who were in the line. Of course, I have no idea whethere the people queued up in front of Apple stores in other cities (or at other stores here in NYC) are similar to this group ... but I'm inclined to think that they are. And if that's true, then the demographics of this group -- in terms of age, gender, nationality, ethnic groups, etc. -- is particularly intriguing. I saw only one guy dressed in a corporate uniform of suit and tie; Apple may be trying to break into the "enterprise" market, but that's not who was standing in line for all those hours in the sun...