Every time there’s an anticipated release — a movie, a book, a new gadget — there’s always someone clamoring to be first in line to get it. Some of these people are just honest fans literally counting down the seconds until release. Some are just addicted to seeing their names in the paper. And some are just there to cash in on the notoriety of being first.
That all being true, we’re not surprised that even though the iPhone 5 hasn’t even been announced yet, there’s already someone camped out in line for one. What is surprising is he’s so open about why he’s doing it: for the publicity.
29-year-old Rob Shoesmith is the first in line at a London Apple Store in the UK. His day job is handling public relations for iOS app dev, MEDL Mobile. But don’t think he’s taking time off the job to camp out for the iPhone 5… this is part of his job.
According to Shoesmith, the iPhone 5 wait is part of an experiment in marketing and PR, and it seems to be garnering some very interesting results: in exchange for some advertising on his blog, he’s already earned free food, gadgets and other useful gear, including $1100 worth of gear.
So Shoesmith seems pretty well stocked… but even so, some rumors peg the iPhone 5’s release as far off as October. Three months is an awful long time to live in a tent on a sidewalk, even if it is for marketing science! Then again, it might just beat his last job: before he was hired by MEDL Mobile, he seems to have been making a living as a trash collector.
[via iDownloadBlog]
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
36 responses to “This Guy Is Living In A Tent Outside Of A London Apple Store Until He Gets An iPhone 5”
This is madness !
$10 says he has no wife… x.x
not anymore, at least
Madness? This is SPARTA!
Showing all that stuff will get you robbed in front of an apple store while waiting for an iPhone 5.
This is just ridiculous….
Suddenly I hope there’s no iPhone5 till next year.
what a looser!
Says the guy who can’t spell.
I think he should go for it. Three months will go by quickly when you’re having fun.
This man is simply homeless. If he made camp in front of OLD NAVY, he’d be waiting in line for the fall line of hooded sweat shirts.
This guy is ruining fanboysm. I can’t wait to see what real fanboys will do to up the ante on this. I suppose they could camp in the beginning of the iPhone 5 line for the iPhone 6.
HE should get a free one… CDMA version (har har har)….
I’m biased because he’s cute. Go him! >_<
He is not waiting for iPhone 5. He just wants to sell himself. And he done that now.
lieng
Can’t we get him thrown off for obstructing the pavement? Or are they waiting to do that until the day before launch?
The usual idea is that you would use NFC to set up the link between the two devices and then do an automatic hand over to a different protocol for doing the actual transfer of data – eg Bluetooth,iphone 5