I picked one up. Figured this thread would have more replies by now.
The story ?round these parts is no one is that interested (or they?ve all pre-ordered). I decided to swing by the nearest Walmart at the 7am opening time (but wound up not getting there till 7:30am) and discovered they?d only sold TWO ipads in their first half-hour. Mine was the third.
They had absolutely no new signage, 3rd gen. display models, etc. and an allotment of twenty iPads total (this is a pretty small Walmart); 5 each of the black/16/wifi, black/32/wifi, white/32/wifi+4g and white/64/wifi+4g. Didn?t ask which flavor of 4g they had. But judging by the lack of crowd, that 20 might last them a good long while.
On the way out, at just past 8am, I swung by a Target (9am open) and a Best Buy (10am open) that share a parking lot a few miles away from the Walmart. No one was waiting at the Target, and only two people were waiting at the Best Buy (but they might have been security as they were BS?ing with a blue-shirt employee who was outside with them.
The Best Buy had gone through the bother of setting out a huge row of orange cones (which made me figure they may have been worried about a crowd) but it was looking pretty grim.
Perhaps the pre-orders killed the release day demand? Or maybe the kind of people who would wait went instead to the nearest 24-hour Walmart that?s probably 45 minutes from here?
Has the era of line sitting for gadgets finally ended?