Quick Update

Just in case you don't follow my Twitter stream, a quick update from yesterday. After queuing for around 5 hours outside the 5th Avenue Apple store, I finally got the two iPads.

The day got off to a bad start with the terrible news from Japan. It sort of puts things in perspective, but I was there in NYC and had to follow through with getting what I'd set out to do. I'll see what can be done in the way of donations when I get back home.

So anyway, I queued up with Kaz, a friend of mine from the MacMania cruise, joining the line at around 12:00. There were already about 350 people ahead of us. On the dot of 5pm, Apple opened the doors and the first 100 or so people went in. By this time, the visible line had increased three fold and I'd heard that the line went down the side street for at least a block. Apple really know how to execute in these launch events. Literally hundreds of blue shirted Apple staff of hand for the various stages of the welcoming and purchasing process. It pretty much worked like clockwork. After plenty of whooping and hollering, we were down in the store, split into cash and credit card buyers and assigned an individual member of staff.

Ten minutes later, I've my iPads and accessories and I'm headed up the stairs.

From the doors opening to being back outside on the street took about 40 minutes, baring in mind that there were 350 people ahead of me.

So what did I get?

As expected, I got the Black 16GB WiFI as the Prize for the current ScreenCastsOnline members draw (open to all new and existing ScreenCastsOnline members).

For my personal iPad, I ended up going for the Black 64GB GSM 3G iPad with the black Smart Cover and HDMI cable, pretty much what I decided yesterday, with a bump in storage.

I did a rough and ready Unboxing video, now available on YouTube if you want to checkout my initial thoughts.

I'll post more thoughts as I get more familiar with the device.