$50 iBook stampede!

Remember those old iBooks being sold off by a school district in Virginia for $50 a pop? Well, if not, you should probably consider yourself lucky. Turns out that, despite pleas from local officials to stay away, a mob scene erupted, as roughly 12,000 hopeful customers started showing up as early as 1:30 am for the 7:00 am sale of about 1,000 iBooks. By the time the gates were ready to open, the line was a half-mile long. As it became clear that demand clearly outstripped supply, the crowd went wild, storming the gates and causing a melee. While the stampede isn't the kind of image Apple would want (though, fortunately, no major injuries were reported) it certainly highlights the, er, insanity spirit of Mac loyalists. Try as we might we just can't imagine a similar scene at a sale of four-year-old Dells or HPs.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

[Joseph Matt @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

As a former resident of Henrico County, this is no surprise. The utter stupidity of this county is beyond comprehension, from neglecting schools that are falling appart to build a new multi-million dollar school for the rich and then buying millions of dollars worth of iBooks. It shouldn't be a surprise that this county dropped the ball, I mean, they DID drop Apple and go to Dell.

[Faentur @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

video here...

http://www.wwbt.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WWBT/MGArticle/WBT_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031784465955

[narco @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

I don't think this has anything to do with Mac loyalists. I'll bet that half of those people never even heard of an iBook before -- all they hear is "$50 laptop" and they go crazy. I can totally see the same thing happening with Dell or HP. Hell, even Compaq.

Fishes,
narco.

[Bryan @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

I live in Richmond (right next to Henrico County) and they reported on the news this morning that several people were trampled and at least one was taken away in an ambulance.

I agree with #3 - I bet the same thing would have happened regardless of brand. I predict a surplus of iBooks on Ebay in the next few days!

[jklivin @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Never mind that they could have increased revenues 500% by auctioning the laptops off.

[Google Nazi @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

I wish I had a $50 ibook now :/ Hope to see them on ebay! Hell, I don't even know the power of an ibook but i need a laptop desperately for college.

[nemi @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Why does the school not want to maximise its income?

Why not ebay them or hold an auction on site?

That way price reflects market demand/value.

Alternativly, why didn't the school offer first refusal to famillies of children at the school?

[Abam @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

No doubt that most of the people there have no idea what they are buying. I planned on going this morning, but when I turned on the news at 5:30, a few hundred people were already in line. My time and safety is worth a lot more than a $50 laptop.

[Spencer Lewis @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

I think that the answer to #5 (why?) was answered by #1 (because they're stupid)

[Daryl Herbert @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Next: The school sells its classrooms for $100 apiece.

What a great way to raise money for education!

[Jake McGraw @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Wow, I doubt that these people were the atypical apple crowd of artists, musician and stuck up techno snobs. From the acts described they must have been straight up gansta. word.

[Spyvie @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

I gotta echo the fishes guy's comments. I know I'd camp out overnight to buy ANY 4yo notebook for $50

[tracy @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

#5 they must be absolute idiots for not doing either of those two things. just freakin amazing

[Matt @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

See? All it takes is dropping the price, Apple. EVERYBODY wants your stuff, it's just too damned expensive.

[CTSLICK @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Ditto #5, what a waste of assets

[CTSLICK @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Sorry...I meant ditto to #7 not #5 , they should have offered these up on eBay or at least to students families first...

[dweebe @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Should have offered it to students based upon their GPA: from best to worst.

[dweebe @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

#5 Blue Balloon: you need an iBook because it matches the color of the sheets you're wearing right now.

[ODB @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

OK, for the record. Students had first dibs on the ibooks, this sale was for the remaining inventory. I suspect that the $50 price had to do partly with the depreciation of the assets, taxes, as well as someones altruistic notions.

[jeff forsythe @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

I wonder how many people there thought they were in line for a $50 iPod...

[bamboo @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

From the D.C. meetup (thanks again) I heard that the laptops were as is. Proably not the greatest of shape. Hell, you would need to by a case of lysole just to disinfect them after all the snotty little kids had been using them. I really don't think it was worth it, they should have never even opened the gates, just said the sale had been postponed and you all need to go home.

[Pixelicious @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Actually, I suspect the reason these people are out for the laptops is because it actually got some media coverage--I've been to state government auctions with 2002/03 Dell laptops that sell for about $65 (I brought a friend who got a new server for $300). No one goes to those, mostly because they don't know they exist, but the deals there are better than those iBooks are, if you're looking for cheap and dirty laptops.

[robin @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Henrico had "wild turkey shooting" nights (not just during Thanksgiving) right across the street from the Texaco station on Thursdays when I was there. This behavior isn't a real shocker.

[cecil @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Looking at the crowd that showed up, I would have just not opened the gate.

I would have let them watch from outside the gate, as I piled them all up and set them on fire.

Every one of them is going to sell theirs, not use it, why let anyone profit.


Henrico County to too poor to sustain itself so Richmond had to annex them. Just FYI..

[phantomprophet @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

I live in Henrico and I was there this morning.
Trust me, I kept right on driving by.
The crowd was not abunch of "Mac enthusiests", instead, it was the dregs of society trying to get a cheap laptop.
And to adress Blue Balloon, trust me there was plenty of all kinds of races, but they all looked like they got their clothes from the salvation army.
Which I guess is okay, the people that can't afford a laptop are the ones that should be getting them anyway.
And the specs of the laptops wasn't anything to be impressed about anyway.
But I can attest, first hand, it was crazy.

[js @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

It would be more interesting to see the crowd if there were $25 4G iPods than $50 ibooks on sale.

DEATH TO IPODS

[Jamin @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Henrico did offer the laptops to the students, these were the leftovers. I live in a surrounding county and everyone knows how stupid this idea was. Cheers Henrico School Board for making national news. An the award for being a total idiot goes to...

[egarc @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

That's why I take my sons fishing during the Tax Free weekends. A bunch of lowlife willing to risk life and limb to save $.08 on the dollar.

[LTM @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

...and all this chaos and panic over 4 year old laptops. Imagine if they were told Aliens just landed with Jesus on board and bigfoot was the pilot. It's always nice to see the human race as rational and level headed as usual.

[Bootes @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

This wasn't because of a tax free weekend with people saving 8 cents per dollar. This was people getting a laptop computer for $50. A laptop computer they could sell for $300 to $400 later.

[solace @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

it was 5500, a far cry from 12,000

http://www.startribune.com/stories/789/5563247.html

[pspimp @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

"It certainly highlights the, er, insanity spirit of Mac loyalists."

Read that, "eBay" Loyalists.

[jdw242 @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

* see what GREED does?

stupid; really stupid.

[ODB @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

The posters who assume that the people lining up this morning would sell these $50 ibooks are just as ignorant as those saying that blacks don't use laptops.

I remember when I couldn't afford a computer (and I was a computer science student!) and would have jumped at an opportunity to finally get a machine I could use.

school is starting back, and many poor folks saw the opportunity to get thier child/student a machine that might help them get a leg up in thier studies.

A suggestion to Henrico county - perhaps they should have held a lottery to determine the laptop buyers instead of setting up a situation ripe for mahem.

[endGame @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

If I was there, I'd just push random people to the ground so they can get stomped the f*ck out of their own stupidity.

[Mike @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Are the people running this laptop program total morons? Even with wear and tear, 4 year old iBooks still fetch AT LEAST $300 on eBay.

If they had ANY BRAINS WHATSOEVER, they would've auctioned them online and avoided all the grief. Or, at very least, held a public auction for county residents. Schools are typically strapped for cash and this COULD have been a way to make a few $$$. Instead, they had a literal fire sale on their hands... not to mention lots of bad press.

[Billy Billum @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

To ODB - I'm sure all of those $50 ibooks are going to be used by deserving students. Get a fucking clue... Look at the picture again. The dude on the far right really looks like he is concerned about his education! Looks to me more like "oh cheap shit I want my stuff!!! "

[indolene @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Whew what has this post become?

"Don't look at me, Jerry. I'm hideous!"

Anyway... one can only hope that the guy at the 45 degree angle got a laptop. He could be a postcard for the start of the 100m dash.

[Peter Rojas @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Ok, this has gotten out of hand. I'm removing all of the comments that are off-topic.

[macsucks @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

what can i say? MACSUCKS

[Horatio @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Wow, Apple fans are truly insane! I know this is true since I'm an Apple fan, and I'm definitely insane. The only thing more insane is thrifty Apple fans. I hope those $50 iBook went to people who really needed it and couldn't have afford it on their own.

[pspimp @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Horatio: "Wow, Apple fans are truly insane! "

HEY! They are "Thinking Different"

[glad @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

I am glad to see that snobbery and dare I say predjudice is alive and well amongst the mac faithful just like the rest of society, oh don't forget to lock your car doors when you're driving as you never know!

In fact it wasn't as bad as the new Ikea opening in Saudi Arabia where somebody actually died. Oh and there was a stampede at another new Ikea opening in Brent, London earlier this year which was cancelled after people stampeded, however the bonehead management decided to open the store at 12 midnight duh!

Henrico County you are not alone!

[Inasaneppl @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

See how easy people can go from civil to insane in a blink of an eye. Believe it or not but humanity is still taking its first few steps out of the cave. Stupid animals!

[Jerome Nicholson @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

This would have been even worse if Henrico had kept its original decision to sell the iMacs to just anyone, regardless of residence. People were planning to fly in from all over the U.S. to buy one. The crowd would have been much larger. Also, the sale site was moved to the Racetrack from a County office building because of crowd concerns. Surely the Police, who have handled massive crowds at the NASCAR races, could handle this. WRONG! And what kind of idiot brings babies and a stroller to this kind of event, anyway?

[Tim Robertson @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Well, you just KNEW someone was going to this THIS.
Sigh...

[Joe @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Bizarre, if this is the way people respond to get a nonessential item, what will happen if there is a shortage of something more important... like food?

[Donnie @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

That's unfortunate that people were trampled, and like many that stated before, the school system lacks that common sense (well, so do school and city council in any city).

Well, about iBooks - before I graduated last year, around 76 out of 80 notebooks had a graphics malfunction or just plain broke, unfortunately my friend and I had to collect these and ship them for warranty repair.

When I saw anb iBook being blown up on the show "Distraction", I'm quite happy that happened, since Apple's notebook quality (I know, they didn't manufacture it, under contract) is nearly abysmal when applied to the most mundane of uses, like popping grades into a spreadsheet or typing up a letter of resignation.

[Jayson Elliot @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Here they are on eBay. You can spot the Henrico ones by the red StopTheft tags, though most sellers seem to be happy to say where they got them:

http://cgi.ebay.com/12-Apple-iBook-G3-500MHz-30GB-Hard-Drive-Airport-Card_W0QQitemZ5797854295QQcategoryZ80050QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-Ibook-G3-12-500MHz-320-MB-Mac-OS-10-2-8_W0QQitemZ5797625162QQcategoryZ80050QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-G3-iBook_W0QQitemZ5797632388QQcategoryZ80039QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

If I could pick it up in person, I'd buy one just so I could meet the person who was greedy, stupid and rude enough to have pushed their way to the front of the line that day. Maybe give 'em a dope slap to go with their payment.

[Mike S @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

#48, read the first one, he says hes a student that got his ahead of the general sale, on August 10th, not yesterday (16th).

other two probably were some dumbasses.