iPhone 5 line grows outside Michigan Ave. Apple store
BY MAUDLYNE IHEJIRIKA Staff Reporter mihejirika@suntimes.com September 20, 2012 4:28PM
Updated: October 22, 2012 6:23AM
The line is growing outside the Michigan Avenue Apple store in downtown Chicago ahead of the release of the iPhone 5 in stores Friday morning.
Julian Diggs, 23, of Wicker Park, who owns his own web and event promotion company, Chi-City Limits, was first in line, having camped out since 3 p.m. Tuesday.
By Thursday afternoon, about 20 people had joined him, with the line already bending around the corner.
“I was No. 1 last year, too. A lot of the employees here know me, so I feel like I have a reputation to uphold,” he said.
Third in line was Charles Bachmandeji, 24, of Uptown, a student at Columbia College who had also been camped out since Tuesday.
“I really want to get the phone,” he said. “I’m on the iPhone 3 right now, and I just really want to have the new one. People are impatient. They want their phones now, and they’re going to get it. I know it’s going to sell out pretty fast, and I don’t want to pay the $1,600 to $1,800 people are going to be asking online once it does.”
Customers don’t have to wait in line days ahead to buy a phone. Apple began taking orders online last Friday.
Danielle Dietze, 22, of Evanston, a recent cosmetology school graduate, was No. 5 in line. She’d been camped out since 4 p.m. Wednesday, but not because she wanted the phone. Like some others waiting, she’d placed an ad on Craigslist offering to hold a spot for the highest bidder. “So far I’ve gotten offers for $250 and $400,” she said.
“To be honest, I pre-ordered my phone on the 14th, so I should have it any day now. I’m really trying to sell my spot,” she said. “It’s hard because it’s cold during the night, and uncomfortable. I got about four hours’ sleep out here.
“But people were coming up giving us food so that was nice,” she said Thursday afternoon. “ . . . I’m hoping to get it sold by tonight so I don’t have to spend another night out here.”
