AppleInsider Staff
Today the iPhone 4S launches in the U.S., Canada, Australia, the U.K., France, Germany and Japan. Stores have opened at 8 a.m. local time to begin selling the device, which features Siri voice recognition and a speedy dual-core A5 chip.
In the U.S., at Apple's flagship store in New York City, a long line braved poor weather to be among the first to get their hands on the iPhone 4S. AppleInsider reader Ryan sent along photos and video (below), and noted that the line wrapped around two sides of the block as of 7:30 a.m. For comparison, the iPhone 4 launch crowd was four sides of the block, though weather conditions were better.
The iPhone 4S is available in black and white, and in capacities of 16GB, 32GB and 64GB. It starts at $199 with a new two-year service contract in the U.S.
This year marks the first time a new iPhone will debut on three carriers in America. In addition to AT&T, which has carried the iPhone since 2007, the iPhone 4S is also available at launch on Verizon and Sprint.
Australians were the first in the world to buy the iPhone 4S at an Apple Store, and TechGuide was on hand in Sydney, where a large crowd was cheered on by Apple employees for the start of sales. Customers were handed cards to help them identify the color and capacity of the iPhone 4S model they planned to buy.
Many customers turn to waiting in line at retail stores to buy the iPhone 4S on launch day because online orders sell out quickly. Almost immediately, Apple sold out of its initial run of preorders, and customers hoping to get a handset on launch day were given a shipping estimate of one to two weeks.
Apple announced earlier this week that it set a new record by pre-selling one million iPhone 4S preorders on the first day. That topped the 600,000 preorders of the iPhone 4 sold in one day 2010.
Analysts expect the iPhone 4S to be a hot seller beyond this launch weekend, throughout the holiday buying season and over the next year. A set of recent predictions from Wall Street analysts called for 3 million sales on the launch weekend, and 25 million this year.
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79 Comments
This will always be retarded to me, but I guess it's probably an event I'd have to be there to understand.
Then again...as someone who isn't fanatic about anything (I use to work around celebrities when I was out of college and my boss was shocked and how little fuck I gave) I doubt I could possibly understand.
But yea...in other news...water is wet -_- lol
Looks like a lot of the Wall Street protesters went to the Apple Store overnight.
(to watch the Wall Street workers buy the new phone?)
My wife and I and the kids went to Apple Store for the launch of Leopard. We all got free t-shirts and there was a lot of fun meeting other people and watching others at the mall wonder what kind of weird people we are. The Apple employees kept bringing water out and high fived and cheered us as they opened. Fun to do once. Waiting for UPS to bring me this one. (On the truck, out for delivery!)
This will always be retarded to me, but I guess it's probably an event I'd have to be there to understand.
Then again...as someone who isn't fanatic about anything (I use to work around celebrities when I was out of college and my boss was shocked and how little fuck I gave) I doubt I could possibly understand.
But yea...in other news...water is wet -_- lol
I'm at the Burlington, MA store, 30min outside of Boston. Got here at 5am to see 7 people ahead of me. The line at 8 was maybe 60 or 70 deep, but hard to tell from where I was in line.
I went for the 64GB black on AT&T.
Where are the posts from those bozos who were here a week ago at the launch, telling us no one was going to buy this phone, and that Apple had made a fatal miscalculation? I suppose they are in line, hope to get their 4s.