[Star Traveler]

Here is a story about the Grand Opening of a new Apple Store in Tulsa, Oklahoma. They said in the story that 400 were there in line. In another story, I saw 330 mentioned. But, I was trying to count and estimate and I think it was closer to 3,000 there. It was a huge crowd and remember, it was also the first Apple Store that Tulsa has gotten. So, it's not only the iPhone introduction, but it's the "coming of age" for Tulsa, in the "Mac-World"... :-)

You should have heard the cheers when the Apple Store opened its doors (actually a "gate" since it's inside the mall...). There was a rousing cheer (many of them), as if everyone was at a football game, cheering on their home team... LOL...

Broken Arrow, by the way, is a suburb of Tulsa. The only other Apple store in the state of Oklahoma is in Oklahoma City...

Regards, Star Traveler

[Star Traveler]

The picture, by the way, is at —

http://www.tulsaworld.com/articleimages/2007/070630_A1_spanc72666_apple130.jpg

just in case it doesn’t show up right here. I took several showing the huge crowds, but I don’t have a server to show it from...

[goldstategop]

I've been to the Apple Store in Colorado. They fixed my Mac Mini for me free of charge... with the kind of customer service they have, no wonder Steve Jobs' company is doing so well.

[SmoothTalker]

Once you switch, you won’t switch back. I can run OSX, Unix, and Windows (never really do) on my system. Love OSX. By far the best interface i’ve ever used. Apple can do software and elegant hardware. Makes most recent PCs i’ve used seem ancient.

[papertyger]

I was ecstatic when we got a new apple store here in Jacksonville... then I bought some things from them :o(

I’ll stick with my Mac, but from now on I’ll be buying them exclusively from the local CompUSA.

[faq]

[politicket]

"It's fun because you get to meet other Mac users and others who are not now but will be by the end of the day with the new store opening," Murphy said. "Mac users are kind of like a cult -- well, not a cult, but a club.

Mac users aren't "kind of like a cult" -- They ARE a cult.

[Star Traveler]

I received a note from Althea Peterson about my estimate for the number of people waiting in line for the grand opening of the Tulsa Apple Store. I had said that by looking at the crowd and guessing what the number was by seeing how many groups of tens there were, I thought there was about 3,000 people. However, my estimate seems to be wrong, since Althea Peterson says she did an actual person-by-person count. So, what can I say? I don't know, but it sure seemed like a large crowd to me, and I thought I was doing that right.

It was a very nice note and part of what she wrote was --

However, I would debate you saying that there were "closer to 3,000" there for the Apple Store opening. Let me assure you by the hours I stood there (as early as 10 a.m.) that the number of people I estimated in line throughout the day is quite accurate. I counted each person standing in line (along with empty chairs of people I saw throughout the day coming and going for food and bathroom runs) up through 5:30 p.m., when I counted 370. There were also exactly 50 people on the upper level looking down at the Apple Store when it opened.

I was one of those on the upper level. I had arrived just prior to the opening of the store and took some pictures up there, and then went down below and took more pictures. I walked clear around the entire crowd, as it went all the way back to the Macy's store at the far end of the mall.

Well, a thanks to Althea Peterson for providing some good coverage for the grand opening of the Tulsa Apple Store and having her story prominently displayed in the Tulsa World.

Regards,
Star Traveler