Apple staffers go nuts on 3 continents
Hollering and high fives at store openings in Queensland, Montpellier and New York City
Running the gauntlet in Queensland, Australia. Image: Nodeblue
Someday Apple (AAPL) will open a store and no one will notice.
But we're not quite there yet.
The company held grand openings for new retail outlets on three continents Saturday — in Chermside, Australia; Montpellier, France; and New York City — and each was accompanied by huge crowds and predictably over-the-top staffers.
As the videos below the fold demonstrate, these events follow what is by now a well-rehearsed script. The customers queue up — true believers camping out overnight. When the lines reach critical mass (in the case of New York's Upper West Side store, stretching around several city blocks), someone gives a signal and the employees go nuts, running wild through the crowd, whooping and hollering and giving high fives. Then the final seconds are counted down, and the faithful enter sacred ground, greeted by a gauntlet of blue, black, orange, teal or fire-engine red.
All this for a free t-shirt.
Below: The videos.
Apple rings up four new iPhone deals in Asia
The week opens with fresh reports of iPhone agreements with overseas carriers, as Apple (AAPL) continues its push to roll the Web-browsing cellphone out beyond the United States and Europe.
The Wall St. Journal, BBC and other sources reported on Monday that Apple and SingTel have signed deals to bring the iPhone to four countries in the Asia-Pacific region. SingTel, with 124 million mobile subscribers, is said to be the largest Asian provider outside the People's Republic of China. The deals involve SingTel and three of its subsidiaries:
- SingTel will bring the iPhone to its 2.3 million subscribers in Singapore
- Bharti Airtel will offer it to its 64 million customers in India
- Globe Telecom will offer it to 21 million subscribers in the Philippines
- Optus will offer it to its 7 million customers in Australia.
Australia and India were among the countries that Vodaphone (VOD) said last week that it was covering (see here) — further evidence that Apple is signing contracts that don't offer exclusivity.
Below: an update of CdnPhoto's map of the iPhone world, redrawn to include the latest developments.
