The crowd snaked through the store, weaving a line of jittery, excited customers from the doors to the shipping area at the back. In this line, 6-year-old Mackenzie waited with all the patience a child could muster - just to get a glimpse of the object of her desire.
When the sales rep finally came out and lay the coveted object on the display table, Mackenzie could no longer stand the wait, quickly ducking under the Tensabarrier that separated the crowd into a modicum of order. She rushed the table so she could see it, touch it, and pretend - for the moment, anyway - that the device was hers alone.
The object of her desire was the newly-released iPad 2, and the crowd of about 200 people that had waited in the Best Buy at Butler Plaza - some for more than an hour - all turned to stare in amazement and envy at the child playing happily on the shiny touchscreen.
At 5 p.m. on March 5, Apple Inc. began the distribution of its latest feat of techno wizardry in its stores and licensed distributors nationwide.
Boasting an upgraded dual-core A5 processor, a front-and back-facing camera, and a reduced depth of 0.34 inches (down from 0.5 inches for the first-generation iPad), the iPad 2 is a faster, more-streamlined upgrade to the tablet computing industry's wunderkind.
"My wife and I were watching the news and saw that it was coming out," said Bruce Ryder, 51, while he waited in line for that fated hour to arrive.
"She looked at me and said, 'I want one.' A happy wife equals a happy life, and that's why I'm here," Ryder said.
The iPad 2, although virtually identical to its predecessor in function, is what the majority of consumers have been waiting for ever since Steve Jobs first announced the arrival of the first iPad on Jan. 27, 2010.
And even though iPad critics say it has limited functionality, the juggernaut of the tablet computing industry offers something that few other few other pieces of hardware can: an emotional connection, as evidenced by the crowd last week.
In Jobs' keynote address on March 2, he emphasized the iPad's funcation as a creative platform, saying it was the next step in the personalization between man and computers.
In the Apple online store, as of 8:38 a.m. on March 11, the waiting time for an order to ship for the new iPad 2 had been extended to between two and three weeks. Those not prepared to wait in line may have to wait even longer should they decide to order the new product online.
