Apple stores all over the world were inundated with hundreds of die-hard Apple fans and a few opportunists looking to make a buck as they fall in long lines for hours waiting to get their hands on the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.
Stores in Australia, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore were first in line to open up shop as Friday rolled around. They are followed by Apple stores in the U.S. Canada, Puerto Rico, France and Germany, although hundreds of customers have already lined up outside Apple's Fifth Avenue flagship store in Soho and its San Francisco store as early as two days ago.
Phenomenal start to a historic day and an honor to be with our incredible team and first customers in Sydney. pic.twitter.com/28aww07wGj
— Angela Ahrendts (@AngelaAhrendts) September 18, 2014
First to open was Apple's Sydney store, where Apple executive Angela Ahrendts was present to oversee the first iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus sales. The line started at the door to the store and dragged out all the way around the block to a parallel street at the back of the store before extending three more blocks. Xin Liu, a 25-year-old student at the Sydney Institute of Interpreting and Translating, said she had been standing in line for 11 hours to get her parents new iPhones.
"When I came here, I thought there would be 500 people," Liu said. "But someone counted and there were already 800. I was really surprised."
Meanwhile, at the head of the line is developer Salvatore Gerace, who said he was falling in line as a public relations move to promote his new app. Gerace said he was planning to give away the iPhone 6 he buys as part of his app promo. Like Gerace, backpacker Claudius Stocker who secured a place at No. 30 on Thursday, said quite frankly that he will sell the iPhone "as soon as stocks run low."
"I am a poor backpacker and this is almost a few days work for me!" he said.
And it looks like the stocks will run low pretty soon, especially for the bigger iPhone 6 Plus. BGR cites a number of mobile carrier and Apple retail store sources who all confirmed what many Apple enthusiasts who cannot wait to get their iPhone 6 Plus on the first day of launch. There will be basically "no chance" of finding the 5.5-inch iPhone anywhere on Saturday. In fact, the sources said customers can no longer purchase the 16 GB iPhone 6 Plus. They also said that only 2 to 3 percent of all iPhones shipped to stores are iPhone 6 Plus units, and all of them are only in one color. As for the iPhone 6, all colors and storage versions will be available to some degree, but Apple stores will most likely have the largest stocks.
Meanwhile, bystanders who did not understand all the hype over the Apple products told the New York Daily News what they thought about it.
"It's stupidity, man," said one person after seeing the swarm of Apple fans outside the iconic glass flagship store. "Pure stupidity."
