Waiting for iPhone: Prospects Look Bright for Indy's Earliest Adopters

INDIANAPOLIS - There were at least a handful of folks outside the Apple Store at Keystone at the Crossing Mall in Indianapolis as early as 4 a.m. this morning, before a security crew politely told them to return at 7. They did as they were told, and were met by another handful of reporters from early morning local TV news. Perhaps it was the bright spotlights and the microwave truck that helped it sink in for them: They were present for history...or at least as much history as you could find at the crack of dawn in a mall parking lot.

Supposedly, the Apple Store isn't the only place for early adopters to get an iPhone. Officials with the local AT&T outlet stores here tell me there will be units on hand in Indianapolis stores and throughout the state, after reopening early this evening at 6:00 pm following a dramatic, one-time-only 4:30 pm closing to break out the boxes...if they have any. AT&T salespeople here (especially at the franchise stores) have been telling customers not to pin their hopes on too many units coming in, though their bosses told me there should be plenty of units to go around, at least at the corporate owned stores.

But many of the two dozen people at this morning's Indy Apple Store line - at least the ones without sleeping bags pulled over their heads - seem to enjoy the buzz and excitement, including the fact that the press showed up. Even if there were a half-dozen other locations they could be standing now, or even if the availability of iPhones at those locations was such that they could be assured of getting at least one if they showed up this evening, one gets the impression they'd rather be here.

There is a certain faith among this group that Apple will pull this off. Without exception, everyone we spoke to in line owned an iPod already - most were video iPods purchased "quite a while ago, last year," though the #3 fellow in line was proud to be owning a first-generation iPod and only retiring it today. We saw five MacBook Pros being used by stakeholders in line, and no Windows-based laptops.

When I asked the crowd the softball question, why is it you really want an iPhone, the answers I got were, in a way, quite practical. They have a phone and they have an iPod, I was told by several, and it's inconvenient to lug around two devices.

Four employees from a local video editing studio assumed the #3 - #6 positions in line. The company would have sent just one person, but there's a two-iPhone-per-customer limit, and the shop needs at least five, hopefully eight. The president, CEO, and the other "bigwigs" in the organization will be the first lucky recipients, though they weren't here themselves - "We're just here to be the bodies," said one studio employee.

The studio owner's teenage son wants an iPhone for himself, to replace an old Sony Ericsson - one of the few cell phones I saw in line that appeared more ordinary than my own. They run Macs in-house, they told me, and they need to be able to better integrate their calendar and contacts information between their core systems and their handsets.

One killer function the stakeholders referred to was mapping - being able to pull up Google Maps to reorient themselves in foreign locations, and to locate landmarks and nearby businesses. When I mentioned the iPhone's lack of a GPS system, I couldn't help but notice a few frowns, as if this was the first they'd heard of that omission. But it wasn't enough to shake their faith.

Local realtor Kurt Flock - whose business, incidentally, is profiled on Apple's Web site - was comfortably perched in a portable canvas chair with his MacBook Pro at position #18. His appreciation of Apple is a matter of public record. I asked Flock, if this were a device produced by any other company, with any other logo but Apple's, would he have as much faith in Apple's ability to carry out its goals?

"The reason for buying this is, it's an integration of Apple software and hardware," he responded. "No other company could provide it. It's seamless. It would be impossible for [anyone else] to have core integration of all the software elements. There are phones you could sync with Bluetooth, but if you want to have integration of photos, contacts, calendars, your e-mail, make use of your Safari browser, this is the one device that brings it all together."

Flock's opinion was shared by stakeholder #15 in line. A businesswoman in her late 20s, she told us the very fact that the iPhone doesn't have buttons is an indication to her of Apple's long-term intentions for the product. Typically when a manufacturer adds new functionality to its product line, she said, it adds more buttons. Apple can do this with a firmware upgrade, she believes, meaning it has a reason to continue refreshing its investment in devices it sells today, rather than always keeping its eye on an entirely new form factor six months down the road.

"Expense is not a problem if you're not buying phones every year," she said.

Stakeholder #16 took that a few steps further. Apple, in his view, is a software company. Naturally, he concluded, every innovation Apple makes will work its way through to iTunes. So inevitably, the firmware upgrade process for iPhone will be something every iTunes subscriber can do for themselves.

"Apple learned a lesson with the iPod," Flock pointed out, "by offering a version of iTunes that works with Windows. So this [iPhone] is going to be cross-platform compatible. Clearly it's going to work better with the Apple operating system than it will with some of its functions ported to an antiquated system," he said with a little sneer.

But will Flock be using this same phone four years from now with frequent firmware upgrades, as others in line suggested? No way. "I will buy the new iPhone the minute it comes out. I'm serious. I'll sell iPhone 1.0 and buy iPhone 2.0 the minute it comes out, because the next version will be even more [innovative]." He added he's trusting AT&T when it says it will upgrade its networks, especially for municipal broadband functions and other 3G connectivity, support for which the current iPhone lacks.

Cost is not a problem for Flock, he said, who invested in more Apple stock last January following the MacWorld announcement. He's since earned enough from Apple's rising value to easily pay for this iPhone, if not also the next several.

I told Flock about the analysts BetaNews spoke with back in January, about half of which thought iPhone would be the "game-changer" for the industry, the other half wondering why the 3G connectivity was left out. He thought for a minute about how best to respond, and was very apparently wrestling with the proper words. The Web browsing and Internet access part of it, he finally said, are frankly secondary features for a device that will not, after all, be his principal work platform. In other words, it won't replace his MacBook Pro.

"The higher network speed will happen," he reiterated, "certainly within the term of my two-year contract...This is a transformational technology device, and Apple will keep it ahead of any and all competitors for the foreseeable future." Is there more Apple could have done to make it more of a portable Macintosh? Sure, they could have added a modem for plugging into the laptop, he said, and perhaps a video out port...and maybe voice recognition for speed dialing.

Sure they could. "These things will come," Flock stated with absolute conviction.

I visited the same Apple Store late yesterday to see whether anyone had been planning to pitch a Coleman tent in the parking lot, maybe light up a can of Sterno, heat up some beans, and listen to some iPod. While I didn't meet any campers, I did meet up with 15-year-old Alex Burnett. A proud soccer star for his local team, the Evansville Elite Flame (and also a Lacrosse player for the Mohawks, as his shirt shows), he saved up about $700 since January, when he first saw the iPhone ads, through contributions from his allowance and doing chores around the neighborhood.

Alex isn't a pretentious fellow; sure, he'll show off his new iPhone to his friends just like he showed off his new video iPod last year ($500, again all of it earned). He won't take it to school; he wants to protect it. Yet from talking to him, I could sense there was a pride in having accomplished this goal. Having the iPhone would only be part of the glory; the other part was simply making it this far.

He really needed this, though, he assured me. "I wanted one...forever. The thing that really got me was the commercial about the video, like you're watching Pirates of the Caribbean. Then you go online and pull a map and find the closest seafood place and call them. I thought that was really neat."

So is he going to use this for his business? To find the closest florist, for instance, on his way home? Yea, why not. He also travels between two cities frequently, a little over a hundred miles each way. "Just even to watch a movie when going back and forth on my phone, that'll be awesome."

Three or four years from now, is Alex planning on having $700 or so ready when the next iPhone is released? He just beamed at me, chin set, straight on, as though nothing stood in his way between himself and the next goal.