Still Long Lines For iPhone 2

There are still long lines and at least a 3 hour wait to buy the iPhone 2 — four days after the device first went on sale.

I went by the Apple Store near San Francisco’s Union Square on Monday evening. At about 7.30PM there was a long line of about 120 people stretching nearly the entire city block.

The concierge at the front door (pictured above talking to the cop) told me the wait was about 3 hours. The cop told the concierge to call if she needed any help later on. She just laughed. She was about to cut the line off — the store closes at 9PM.

She said the line had been like that all day — a work day for most San Franciscans. A coworker from Wired.com went to the store at lunchtime thinking they could walk right in and pick up a iPhone, and were flabbergasted to see there was still along line.

The problem is the activation procedure, which she said takes an average of 20 to 30 minutes for each customer — even existing AT&T subscribers. Unlike the first iPhone, no one is allowed to leave the store with an inactivated iPhone.

Earlier in the day, my wife went by another San Francisco Apple Store in the Stonestown shopping mall, where there was a line of about 25 or 30 people.

Anyone else seeing long lines?

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