Anticipating long lines throughout the day, Apple and AT&T stores opened over an hour early, at 8am Friday morning, for the launch of the highly anticipated Apple iPhone 3G.
Both stores upon opening had lengthy lines which led outside of the mall. To secure places in line, some customers arrived very early in the morning. One report had a customer arriving as early 11pm Thursday night.
The AT&T store had a limited number of phones on hand, not even enough to supply the line outside of their store when they opened. The Apple store had what seemed like an unlimited supply of phones, allowing for a line throughout the entire day. Lines consistently stretched into employee entrances outside the normal “lines” of the mall as we know it. The line was an average of five hours long for any customer who was brave enough to jump in it. Apple extended their hours until 11pm last night, and as of this (Saturday) morning they already have a line of 100 people outside of their store before their opening.
Last year, Apple had customers activate their iPhones at home, cutting down on the time customers spent in the store, which is what has created longer wait times this year. Some might think customers are crazy for waiting so long in line for a phone, but undeniably, Apple’s iPhone over the last year has changed the cellphone industry and continues to transform it with the Apple iPhone 3G.
I was at Bellevue Square around noon today and the line still looked like that!!
That is very dedicated to wait in line like that, but I have better things to do with my time. Did you read about all the problems they are having already?
http://tinyurl.com/587dzv
waited an hour on Saturday at 5pm and got my phone. the line is not that bad.
I did the same too!
I waited for 5 hours…Now that the phone is sold out, it isn’t looking too dumb to have waited 🙂
I headed over there by 9PM on Thursday night. Since there was no line at all, I just stayed in that area until about 3 to 4AM. I was #11 in the line.
They let us into the Bellevue Square at 6AM and the Apple Store opened at 8AM.
I walked out the store at around 8:40AM with a white 16GB iPhone 3G.
Love it.