I Had Every Intention of Waiting Until the Hysteria Subsided…

…and Apple had time to work out the scratched-right-out-of-the-box issues I'd been reading about and the general inability to actually buy one and get it before the Mayan Apocaplyse, but a combination of my current contact with Verizon being conveniently up for renewal and learning of a not widely advertised method of ordering one and getting it the next day changed my mind.

It works like this: you go onto Apple's website and place your order between the hours of 10pm and 4am and then select in-store pickup for the next day. Apparently Apple has a certain percentage of phones held in reserve in each store for this very purpose. With even Verizon quoting me a delivery date well into November, I figured I had nothing to lose by trying this.

I really didn't think it would work, so I was simultaneously surprised and elated when I placed the order last night and the configuration I wanted popped up as available for pickup in the Lakewood store.

I had previously arranged to take today off, so this morning, after receiving the confirmation email from Apple, I drove over to Lakewood and picked up the shiny new Precious. Not a scratch or nick on it. Relieved. Setup and transfer of all my apps was about as painless as possible, and while I had some initial buyers remorse when I hit that buy button last night, I'm quite happy with the purchase.