Gettin' Our Mac mini, iLife '05 and iWork at the Apple Store this Morning--with Photos

When we finally looked at the Mac mini on Apple's online store in the days following Steve Jobs' keynote address at Macworld 2005, the time to ship was listed at 3-4 weeks. We ordered a 512MB iPod shuffle that said 1-2 weeks but decided not to risk being the last Mac web site to get a Mac mini--we resolved to get in line early and buy one at the Fashion Valley Apple Store in San Diego on their announced availability date, today. We decided to do the same for iWork and iLife '05, the latter coming with the Mac mini. It may have been a mistake since our iPod shuffle arrived in a few days instead of 1-2 weeks and many reported receiving their Mac mini ordered through Apple's online store on Thursday. Anyway...

We arrived at the Fashion Valley Apple Store at 8:15 a.m PST. While the normal opening time is 10 a.m., we got a tip from a store staffer that they were going to open an hour earlier today when we called earlier in the week to confirm that they would actually have some Mac minis for sale. There was a short line when we arrived, only 8 people waiting and most were there to get an iPod shuffle. Rene Lopez was the first in line. He told Macs Only! that he had arrived at 5:45 a.m. and that the second person had arrived about 6 a.m. Rene was there to get two iPod shuffles, a 512MB model and a 1GB model. While we were talking to him, the line doubled and we could see a lot more people coming down the mall. By the time the store opened at 9 a.m. there were more than 50 people in line, maybe as many as 100 or so.

At a few minutes before 9 a.m. several store staffers came out and went down the line writing orders so merchandise could be organized for quicker checkouts. Apparently they only had a few $99 512MB iPod shuffles. A person just in front of me, about #15 in line, got the last one. He had planned to get a 1GB model but after discussing the iPod shuffle with us, he decided to save $50 and get the smaller model. Like us, he has all of his music on his computer and 5-6 hours of music carried around on an iPod is more than enough before re-docking and loading on different songs. We hope he doesn't regret it later. We were happy that, as #17 in line, a base $499 Mac mini was still available.

At 9 a.m., they let all of us who successfully placed an order inside and the checkout line stretched from the front of the store back to the theater. We had hoped that the Apple Store Genius could install an Apple AirPort Extreme card in our Mac mini but the store was not doing accessory installations on the spot today. We took our Mac mini (with an iLife '05 disc inside) and iWork software home, stopping on the way only at Home Depot for a set of unofficial Mac mini opening tools. [Bill Fox]