Hong Kong Apple Stores Selecting Customers via Lottery

[The Wooster]

Hong Kong Apple Stores Selecting Customers via Lottery

Apple Stores in Hong Kong have resorted to a lottery system as the dwindling supply of the latest iPhone causes customers to turn on each other.

If you were to visit an Apple store in Hong Kong you'd be forgiven for thinking you'd wandered onto the set of Soylent Green [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhfSPvp252M]. Throngs of scalpers, baying crowds held back by security guards, screaming, violence, people being carried away by scoop loaders ... okay, I made that last part up, but you get the idea. Supply of the new iPhone 4S comes nowhere near to meeting demand, and people aren't happy about that.

In order to avoid kicking off some kind of awful smartphone riot, Apple is now selecting customers via lottery. Potential customers can enter their details, including their mandatory government ID numbers, into Apple's website between 9am and 10pm. If they're lucky enough to win the honor of spending $650 on a black (or white!) rectangle, Apple will email them by 9pm, informing them they can pick up the phone the next day. The program is currently limited to stores in Hong Kong, though Apple stores all over China have been affected by the shortage. The photo in the top right was taken in Beijing.

Personally, I think Apple's missed a beat on this one. Instead of a lottery they should turn the purchasing process into a reality TV show, complete with minor acts of self-degradation like in I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here. 'You may think you want a new iPhone, but do you want it enough to eat this boiled kangaroo anus? [http://youtu.be/bbTmt_4Wt8E?t=3m58s]' They'd make a fortune. Well, more of a fortune anyway.

Source: The Verge [http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/30/2759422/apple-store-hong-kong-iphone-lottery]

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[Rad Party God]

Well, at least it's not a lottery of chosing virgins to appease an angry dragon.

Edit: Just watched Dragonslayer last sunday, almost 16 years after I saw it for the first time, awesome movie.

 

[wyrmslayer1991]

hell. if there's anyplace we're going to have a deathtrap filled game show where the prize is nothing but an iphone, it's gonna be china.

 

[wsmieszek]

Confirmed that it's crazy out there, gave up on trying to even fix my 3GS because of the hordes present there every day at any time.

 

[Ninedeus]

Personally, I think Apple's missed a beat on this one. Instead of a lottery they should turn the purchasing process into a reality TV show, complete with minor acts of self-degradation like in I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here. 'You may think you want a new iPhone, but do you want it enough to eat this boiled kangaroo anus? [http://youtu.be/bbTmt_4Wt8E?t=3m58s]' They'd make a fortune. Well, more of a fortune anyway.

Why stop there, think of all the thing we could make those people do to get an iphone. Why not create thunder dome atmosphere with the announcer screaming "500 men enter 1 man leave....with iphone." with crowds screaming and booing all around, in a single large spherical dome with an apple logo and on the inside is a single iphone 4s. Formerly civilized people beating each other with their bare fists ruining their suits and clothes in a flurry to reach to one thing they all want. When the dust settles and everything becomes quiet once again, the dome is opened with one man leaves in his hand an iphone. Of course he goes to the cash register, pays $650 and promptly leaves.

Woah, I think had a little bit too much coffee there.

 

[The Wooster]

Personally, I think Apple's missed a beat on this one. Instead of a lottery they should turn the purchasing process into a reality TV show, complete with minor acts of self-degradation like in I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here. 'You may think you want a new iPhone, but do you want it enough to eat this boiled kangaroo anus? [http://youtu.be/bbTmt_4Wt8E?t=3m58s]' They'd make a fortune. Well, more of a fortune anyway.

Why stop there, think of all the thing we could make those people do to get an iphone. Why not create thunder dome atmosphere with the announcer screaming "500 men enter 1 man leave....with iphone." with crowds screaming and booing all around, in a single large spherical dome with an apple logo and on the inside is a single iphone 4s. Formerly civilized people beating each other with their bare fists ruining their suits and clothes in a flurry to reach to one thing they all want. When the dust settles and everything becomes quiet once again, the dome is opened with one man leaves in his hand an iphone. Of course he goes to the cash register, pays $650 and promptly leaves.

Woah, I think had a little bit too much coffee there.

My original draft of this piece had a passage much like this one. In it I suggested they take a Thunderdome, paint it white, and call it the iDome. I cut it for brevity's sake.

Great minds and all that.

 

[Ninedeus]

snip

snip

My original draft of this piece had a passage much like this one. In it I suggested they take a Thunderdome, paint it white, and call it the iDome. I cut it for brevity's sake.

Great minds and all that.

"Great minds think alike, but fools seldom differ"

iDome.... my inner snob cries for not thinking of that name. Would make a wonderful sports show though.

Apple presents: iBrawl at the iDome I - iphone 4s massacre.

And they'd have a special every time they release a new product, iphone 5, ipad 3 etc.

 

[Quiet Stranger]

Somewhere, Steve Jobs is looking down (but most likely up) on this and he's smiling and wringing his hands maliciously

 

[Atmos Duality]

Apparently, nowhere is safe from the iGhouls...who wake every day from their iPods, leave their iPads to doggedly pursue their iFad.
Really. It's like Steve Jobs never left. But then again, did the Devil ever truly die?

Seriously. That's just freaking nuts.
It's a CELL PHONE. What the hell is so essential about getting one on the first day?

If experience has taught me anything, it's best to wait for the initial slew of bugs and unknown kinks to get worked out of the product first before committing.

Well, at least it's not a lottery of chosing virgins to appease an angry dragon.

As a resident dragon, I take offense to that!
We're very kind to our angry virgins!

...Or do I have that the other way around?

 

[kasperbbs]

What the hell?! Its a phone! But these people are acting as if they are trying to get a limited supply cure for a lethal disease.

 

[Formica Archonis]

Not saying I'd never act this stupid over something, but I can say for sure that I'd only do it for something WAY further down Maslow's hierarchy of needs than, oh, say, THE PEAK.

 

[Alexander Cunningham]

What the hell?! Its a phone! But these people are acting as if they are trying to get a limited supply cure for a lethal disease.

In China? It may as well be. (They don't have the same choice as we do, it's either tPone 5s or some cheap nokia thing)

 

[Timberwolf0924]

"The Hunger Games" much?

 

[Lunar Templar]

Personally, I think Apple's missed a beat on this one. Instead of a lottery they should turn the purchasing process into a reality TV show, complete with minor acts of self-degradation like in I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here. 'You may think you want a new iPhone, but do you want it enough to eat this boiled kangaroo anus? [http://youtu.be/bbTmt_4Wt8E?t=3m58s]' They'd make a fortune. Well, more of a fortune anyway.



My original draft of this piece had a passage much like this one. In it I suggested they take a Thunderdome, paint it white, and call it the iDome. I cut it for brevity's sake.

so you went with 'fear factor' instead?

>.>
<.<
hell, I'd watch that, or the iDome version, stupid people doing stupid, heath/life endangering things for an iphone

OHOH!!!

we can drop them all in the Serengeti, but nothing but simple tools, a cantine of water and 'positive thoughts' and leave them to survive for no less then 1 month for said iphone, in case of a draw, knife fighting against an angry bear to determine the winner.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Jesus Christ! It's just a phone!

 

[airrazor7]

This...doesn't make any sense to me. So, in china, where workers are committing suicide due to the harsh working conditions of the apple factories, these people are slobbering over a piece of plastic and a chip that their very relatives literally and regrettably spilled blood, sweat and tears over?