Ranting Kenya

I’ve read a number of posts on various blogs making light of the actual people that are currently lined up for the iPhone at the NYC Apple store. By “making light of” I mean suggesting that these people are not the “ideal” iPhone customers that Apple wanted lining up first. I disagree.No, the first man in line is not like Justin Long in the Mac commercials. He’s not young, he doesn’t dress the same, he doesn’t look particularly creative, he doesn’t have a Pixar shirt on either.

But he is completely different (sound like the old “Think Different” Mac ads). Someone you’d expect to find in that line would be working on a Mac laptop, listening to their iPod, holding a picture of Steve Jobs, maybe even a life size cardboard cutout of him. He’s not doing any of those. He just wants an iPhone.

If this doesn’t signal the end to wireless devices as we know it, I don’t know what does. Repeatedly I’ve heard analysts (maybe even Apple, I can’t remember) say that the iPhone will sell out day one to all the early adopters and Apple fanboys. This guy doesn’t appear to be either. The iPhone clearly has a wider appeal.

What makes the guy sitting first the ideal Apple customer isn’t just that he has money to buy an iPhone, but because he’s different from the people expected to buy it. A new demographic for Apple to sink their teeth into. The Mac computer has picked up steam since the iPod, perhaps it’s about the accelerate further with new people getting exposed to the “Mac” religion for the first time.

Seriously, I didn’t see an iPod on that guy in line. I can hardly believe it.