UPDATED: We got some comments from Dave Rahimi in Sydney. Blogger Dave Rahimi figured out a clever way to be the first person in the world to buy an iPhone 6.
Rahimi and his girlfriend, Jasmine Juan, flew thousands of miles from California to Sydney, Australia, to purchase the first two iPhone 6s to go on sale worldwide.
The couple just emerged from the Apple Store in Sydney, which was mobbed by a monster crowd of about 2,500 people. Some had camped outside the store for more than a week.
But Rahimi and Juan avoided the crowds and more or less walked right into the store.
Here’s how they did it.
The couple pre-ordered their phones in their native California as soon as Apple offered them for sale at midnight Friday 12th. Cleverly, they chose “store pickup” as the delivery option — and the store they chose was located on George Street in Sydney!
“I reserved the phones in California and came to pick them up on launch day in Sydney,” Rahimi explained by email from Sydney. “I made sure to get in the reserve line — not the crazy long non-reserve line — by 5:00 A.M Sydney time, and it happened to be that I was the first one there.”
They walked out with their phones before the main line had even moved. Very clever!
“It feels awesome, being one of the first to get a device that so many people, including myself, have been looking forward to,” he said. “I love mobile technology and being able to get probably the most sought after phone first is amazing.”
Rahimi runs a phone blog called PhoneBuff and YouTube channel by the same name. He bought the iPhones to review on his YouTube channel, which has more than 300,000 subscribers. His first video is a drop test, which can be seen here.
“I plan on doing a lot of other coverage on my YouTube channel in the near future,” he said.
The iPhone 6 is shaping up to be a monster hit. Massive lines are forming at Apple Stores around the world and Android users are reportedly trading in their devices in large numbers.
The doors at the Sydney store opened at 8 a.m.
Angela Ahrendts, head of Apple’s retail operation, also flew to Australia to witness the iPhone 6 frenzy. “Phenomenal start to a historic day and an honor to be with our incredible team and first customers in Sydney,” she tweeted.
Phenomenal start to a historic day and an honor to be with our incredible team and first customers in Sydney. pic.twitter.com/28aww07wGj
— Angela Ahrendts (@AngelaAhrendts) September 18, 2014
Via: Queensland Times
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander is an expert on:
Apple and Apple history
Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Tim Cook and Apple leadership
Apple community
iPhone and iOS
iPad and iPadOS
Mac and macOS
Apple Watch and watchOS
Apple TV and tvOS
AirPods
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
