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Gary Allen with his son, Devin, at a Beijing
Apple Store in 2008. PHOTO: Devin Allen
Lining Up with Gary Allen
Gary Allen traveled the world just to stand in lines
outside Apple Stores. He did it for publicity—but
not for himself.
Allen, a writer, wanted to make sure the foot
soldiers of Apple Stores, like the retail workers
and even the carpenters who made display
tables for the stores, got proper recognition for
their contributions to the company by way of his
now-defunct website IFOAppleStore.com. As
noted in the first section of this chapter, the site’s
name means “in front of Apple Store.” He became
known as the foremost independent authority
on the inner workings of the Apple Stores and
was frequently seen talking to the throngs of
people at new store openings. Founded in 2001,
shortly after the opening of the first Apple Store,
IFOAppleStore attracted a devoted following.
Before Allen died from brain cancer in the
fall of 2015, he’d stood in line on the opening day of
more than 140 new stores in places as far-flung as
Istanbul, Beijing, London, Paris, and Tokyo. Some
saw this behavior as eccentric, but the point was
not to attend the store opening itself; what Allen
loved was the chance to socialize with other fans of
Apple. In fact, while Allen had been described in
the pages of the Washington Post (https://www
15/apples-biggest-fan-has-died/) as Apple’s big-
gest fan, he preferred to shift attention to Apple’s
unsung heroes, the thousands who made the
stores nearly as iconic as the devices sold there.
“I wouldn’t call my dad an extrovert,” said
Devin Allen, who traveled to more than 20 openings
with his dad and attended others via FaceTime. “He
didn’t go to parties or the bar. For the most part, he
liked to stay home. But when it came to the Apple
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