Lining Up for iPad2: American Technology Fans’ Logic of “Replacement”

Want to find an American friend to buy an iPad2 for you? It may not be easy.

At 10:30 p.m. on Mar. 12 U.S. Eastern time, I arrived in Boston for the Game Exhibition, PAX. There were people who had arrived earlier than me at the hotel where I stayed to “steal” an iPad2; they drove here on Mar. 11 and were driving around the Apple store for 5 minutes until they found the end of the long line. This really was a contagious “war;” I already had an iPad1 and was not planning to buy an iPad2, but at that moment I would have used the limit amount (Apple allows consumers to only buy a maximum of two iPad2 at a time) to buy an iPad2 if I could take out my purse.

My past experience was similar to this time. When the iPad was first released in 2010, I already had an iPod, a Macbook Air, an iPhone3GS and a Kindle. I thought that I would not be moved by the new product, but the result was this: I happily spent almost $700 to buy a 32 GB iPad with 3G and WiFi and was indifferent to the “encroachment” among those products.

For example, since I had an iPhone with a digital music feature, my iPod was put away somewhere and forgotten; since I bought an iPad, my Kindle was shelved on my book shelf, accumulating dust. Facing the “Price Difference” incident caused by Apple in the past few days, a question was haunting me: how often do American tech fans replace their gadgets? How do they deal with the instantly outdated old love? Do they have tangled love-hate emotions?

That night, I sent questionnaires to consumers by email. A friend soon came to me exclaiming, “you found a good topic, which is close to what’s on my mind. You know I’m an Apple fan, but you may not know how much impact Apple products have on my life. I not only use them every day, but also breath ‘Apple air,’ sucking the ‘reforming spirit’ of those products every day.”

According to this man, his family has four iPhone4s for four people; he and his wife have an iPad and a MacBook Pro and he’s also using a MacBook Air; his two children each have an iMac.

When I was at Silicon Valley in the past, this friend had done everything possible to promote the merits of Kindle to me, but now because of iPads, he and his wife have already discarded two different types of Kindles. In addition, other “abandoned” Apple products, like iPods of all series and iPhone3GS, according to his family, are useless. Most of the time, he would give those undesired electronic products to his relatives.

“Yes, I immediately want to have an iPad2, like kids want candy,” he said.

Another friend of mine is engaged in traditional retail business, but he’s also a crazy collector as far as I’m concerned. Since 2003, he has used 5 iPods, had two MacBook Pros, a MacBook Air, an iTouch, an iPad1 and 3 iPhones. “If the iPhone 5 comes out, I’ll still buy it!” he said.

Thank god he still uses his Kindle, retaining the black and white reading experience granted by Amazon. He told me that aside from giving outdated electronic products to others, there were some ways to recover partial costs, like publishing personal ads on Amazon or Classified websites like Craigslist.

“I have no tangled love-hate emotions about replacing the products, why should I?” he said, “I follow these new products because I love Apple and Amazon. As a consumer, I get confidence and happiness from these brands, and not every company can make me do this. I just pay for my happiness.”