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Friday June 19, 2009
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 The iPhone 3G S went on sale at 7 AM today, and of course Apple fans lined up for their phones. The line-up at the flagship Apple Store on 59th Street in Manhattan was clearly less than Apple had planned, though. While there were about 100 people on line when I got there at 7:20, there were empty corrals prepared for more. Folks on Twitter are reporting the same phenomenon all around the country. Jason Hiner says there were about 100 people lined up in Louisville. Eric Zeman stood in a 30-person line in New Jersey. Rene Ritchie found a small line-up in Montreal.
The line-up seemed to be as much for media as for iPhone buyers, who this year had a home delivery option. (In other words, if you were on line, you were doing it to socialize, not because you wanted an iPhone.) Wandering around the scene, I bumped into CNN, Bloomberg, R3 Media, Xinhua and several local TV channels all interviewing the new iPhone owners. The usual crowd of ringtone merchants, phone recyclers and such were also trying to market their wares to both the iPhone purchasers and the media.
We'll have our full iPhone 3G S review on Monday. For now, you can see what I think of the new iPhone OS 3.0, whether the $99 iPhone 3G is a good buy, or read my roundup of all the existing iPhone 3G S reviews out on the Web.
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June 19, 2009 3:52 PM
I wonder when the Apple stores will be selling MacBooks again? I was at the store in Burlington Mass today, and unless you're buying an iPhone forget about getting in. I'd buy via Applestore on-line except that FedEx has a tendency to dump packages at a different street with the same house number as mine. Maybe by Monday or Tuesday the stores will be selling computers again.
June 20, 2009 12:56 PM
One of my coworkers who went to pick up a reserved 3GS yesterday noted that there were people in the store trying to buy Macbooks and Macbook Pros....he felt bad for them, trying to buy a laptop while there's a mass of people lining up for new iPhones!
At the same time, it's kind of silly to say "I think I'll go check out a new laptop on iPhone launch day!" knowing the popularity of the device!
June 21, 2009 12:15 PM
Wait!
What?!
Apple still sells laptops?
I thought they only sold phones now.
June 21, 2009 4:05 PM
I think the media are mising the point of all this. Apple and AT&T have been pushing people to go online and pre-register, giving everyone the option of home delivery. Most people will of course choose not to stand in line, so the lack of lines means nothing until we see the sales figures as they start to trickle out Monday...
June 23, 2009 3:35 PM
It's confusing when you keep referring to people "on line" instead of the correct terminology-"in line".
Remember-those days of people standing "in line" NOT "on line"