Wesley's Tool-Box

Visiting Japan to buy the new iPhone on the launch day seems like it's become a regular thing, but a lot of luck is needed to make it happen Thankfully, I was still fortunate enough to make a quick visit to Osaka for an in-store pick-up. As my family was visiting Ulsan for the Chuseok holidays, I rode on the plane that departed from the nearby Busan Gimhae International Airport.


A 75-minute flight later, I was at the Kansai International Airport. I moved quickly to ride on the Airport Express serviced by Nankai Railway because I had to make it to the Apple Store downtown before the reserved time was over.

As luck would have it I indeed arrived just in time, and the staff got me to line up with other people who made reservation.


At the other end of the store was apparently a line for those who wanted an iPhone 7 but wasn't able to make a reservation. It was expectedly much longer, and there was still a queue outside the store.


As you can see here, the new jet (glossy) black colour was overly popular and was very low in stock. Situation isn't much different online.


After about 20 minutes of waiting, I had my reserved iPhone in my hands - a matte black iPhone 7 with 256GB storage. I was sorely needing the extra storage because of all the photos I take every day. And to think I once thought 128GB might be good enough.


Before leaving the store, I took a brief look at an iPhone 7 Plus as well and put it side by side with an iPhone 7. Other than the obvious size difference, the dual camera stood out. It looked a bit strange, but some quick tests I did on it worked very well.


Once I had my new iPhone, I brought the phone to Korea later in the day so that Celine could do her annual unboxing.


Interestingly, the box no longer was shrink wrapped and was instead covered with plastic sheet that had a pull tab. It was much easier an safer for her to do the unboxing. I'll talk about what I did between the store visit and the return flight in the next post.