Racked Mailbag: Apple Fan's Tale of iPhone Woe

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Once in a while, we pull letters from the Racked Inbox and post them for your enjoyment and/or enlightenment. Want to contribute? We're listening. Anonymity always assured.

The insanity surrounding the iPhone 3G launch has been well documented here and elsewhere. Why, an entire week after the gadget debuted people are still waiting up to four hours in line to buy it. The story from one unhappy shopper, sent to the Racked Inbox at the crack of dawn this morning:

So I decided to take the plunge and buy a new iPhone today. Got up at 6, went to gm building store thinking that it would be the fastest- line was tripled up in front, and wrapped back along side street past FAO (5 hours).

Got in cab, was headed to soho and checked the availability of phones at the store from my current gen iPhone (edge is so fucking slow that I was almost there when then page was done loading), but they didn't have 16gb in black, so I made the cabbie turn around. Now, I'm 35 minutes in to what I guess to be a 2 hour wait, once the meatpacking store opens in an hour.

The iPhone is cheap, but with lost opportunity costs (sitting here and not at my desk making $$$), this thing is definitely in the 4 digit range.

This is seriously close to rock bottom. Line banter is about as annoying as it gets, and the stupid cheap headphone that came with my first iPhone stopped working, so I can't even listen to music.

The good news is that I think I'm about to sell my old iphone to some dude in line for $300.

Sent from my stupid fucking iPhone