Apple Egged by Angry Chinese

(NASDAQL AAPL) is used to being the darling of the media and of the people. It is used to being showered with compliments. It is on a pedestal, and it does not imagine for one second that anyone looking up is doing so with anything other than wonder and mesmerized glee. It does not expect to get egged like the school principal's house on Halloween. But that is exactly what did happen in Beijing's Sanlitun district after eager shoppers who had being waiting in line to buy the iPhone 4S at the main store for hours in temperatures below 9 degrees were told that the phone would in fact not be going on sale. Let's be honest – that would annoy anyone. The potential customers were originally told that the store would open at 7 a.m. but at 7:15, the doors were still locked and people started chanting “Open the Doors”. When a poor sap with a bullhorn announced that the phone would not be going on sale that day without giving a reason, the crowd got angrier, chanting “Liars”. According to

, Shaun Rein, managing director of China Market Research Group, said that, “This is a debacle. Everybody knows there will be massive numbers of people when Apple has this kind of a launch. This shows very poor retail management ability.” Rein is right, to a degree. However, a crowd gathered and behaving like rioters because of a phone isn't all bad news for Apple. How many other companies can harness this kind of fever-pitch atmosphere? This is the kind of thing you usually see if a chart-topping band cancels a show at the last minute. Does it really make Apple look bad in the long run that people in China care so much? Whisper it, but could this be a little slice if genius from the PR gurus? So what did the waiting public do (or some of them anyway) when the doors remained shut for safety reasons? They pelted the store with eggs. That in itself raises some interesting questions. If the people had been waiting in line for hours at an Apple store, where in the hell did they get eggs from? Were they anticipating such issues? Or did one quick-thinking fellow call up a buddy, who in turn dashed to the grocery store for supplies. Either way, the Apple window cleaner in Beijing is in for a busy morning.