There it was. Like the White Tower of Ecthelion, glimmering like a spike of pearl and silver. It was 15 feet away from me. The white iPhone.
Tonight I was at dinner with a couple of friends when something caught my eye. I cut into our conversation. “Look at the table next to ours. Is that the white iPhone?” Both of my friends, geeks like me, got excited. Yep.
A man at the next table in his 20s or 30s sitting with a female companion kept picking up the device and then setting it back down on the table. But it was as if he was setting it down in the perfect place on the table to show it off to all those with a line of sight. He wanted people to see what he had.
I tried to subtlety take a couple pictures with my own iPhone. A black one. But we were just out of range and the restaurant was just a little too dark to get a good shot. Then one of my friends abruptly stood up and walked over to the man with the mythical device.
“Is that the white iPhone?”
“Um… Yeah.”
The man quickly shoves the phone into his pocket.
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“Is it the real one or a custom one?”
“Real.”
My friend comes back to relay the conversation to us. “It’s real.”
Within two minutes the man and woman are up and gone from that restaurant. We spooked them. Who was he? Apple employee? Apple Store manager? Professional unicorn tamer? I have no clue.
I tweeted about the close encounter. Within 15 minutes, I had a few emails from employees at various stores around the U.S. (Apple and otherwise) saying that they’re definitely in their backrooms ready to roll. “It’s just a matter of the big boss announcing it,” one writes.
Will that be tomorrow (like we suggested a few weeks ago)? Probably.
Just about 11 (strange) months after I first held one, I’ll be able to walk into an Apple Store and marvel at the white iPhone again. A fanboy’s dream finally fulfilled.
I’m sort of disappointed Apple didn’t send a review unit our way. I had the perfect review set up:
Read this. It’s just like that. But white.
Boom. What a night.
(These last two pictures are from my first encounter in the hands on area after the iPhone 4 unveiling in June 2010.)
