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?
24 responses to “Still Long Lines For iPhone 2”
Went to the Irvine Spectrum in OC yesterday and while the Apple Store was PACKED there was no line and they seemed to have phones on hand.
I went to go pick one up at Valley Fair Mall in Santa Clara, today at around 5:30pm, and it there were probably like 60 people in line – it was way too long for me to wait. I’ll try again at a less popular time.
I picked up my iPhone 3G in about 2 hours in Glendale, CA. The process was smooth and quick, even though I have Lifelock, which adds fraud protection to my credit reports. Before I left with my iPhone, I shared my original iPhone song and video on YouTube with the store associate, Dean. It can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
Funny song: Weird Video
Still lines in downtown Boston. I did the same as your co-worker: strolled by yesterday at 7:50 a.m. (on my usual daily walk to work), figuring the Monday morning after a frenzied weekend of iPhone sales would be the perfect time to find no line. Nope. I would say maybe 30 people were there ahead of me (the store opens at 8 a.m.). I tried again at lunch, leaving at 11 instead of noon, thinking I could easily beat the rush. Wrong again. This time about a dozen people waiting. I wouldn’t call either of these lines _long_ per se, but when was the last time you saw anybody waiting in line for anything other than concert/sports tickets, gaming systems at Christmas, or food at lunch time?
No long lines in Cincinnati, because there aren’t any freaking phones. A line formed outside of the store Sunday morning about 40 deep by the time the store opened and an employee came over and said to the last 20 in line “You do know that there aren’t enough phones for you?” “How would we know that?” replied the guy next to me. Somebody needs to train the store personnel in dealing with disappointed customers. And according to Apple’s availability indicator, the Cinci store didn’t have any phones Monday and won’t have any today (Tuesday). Actually, the indicator says that out of the 10 stores in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Michigan that only the Cleveland store will have phones today, and only the black 16gb one at that.
3 days in NYC trying to that iPhone – LONG lines & rain! http://tinyurl.com/64e3nx
AGS
3 days in NYC trying to get that iPhone – LONG lines & rain! http://tinyurl.com/64e3nx
AGS
I definitely thought I could walz in on my lunch to pick one up too. That sure worked out well. I just ended up waiting for a couple hours later that day to get mine.
The Apple store in Cambridge (Mass.) always has a ridiculous line spanning half the length of the mall, a good 40-ish people. Of course it’s hard to tell because it’s one of those weird chopped up lines because it’s in a mall, but it’s a line that people are waiting in nonetheless. The Boston store on Boylston always has a line outside wrapping a few times right in front of the store (when they have one in stock, that is), but nothing as massive as the one spanning the sides of the block on release day.
I’m just glad I waiting for my Jesus phone on Friday, and I’m not spending the same amount of time waiting now.
Sherman Oaks. Still going… yeesh
No queues whatsoever here in Switzerland, as everywhere is completely sold out. Key operator Swisscom told me today that I could reserve one, but that “it might take 2-3 months”.
A 3-hour queue sounds pretty good from this side of the pond!
i was just at cambridgeside in Cambridge, MA at 10 am today, for something else, and there was a line of about a dozen or so, with the woman in the front of the line reporting an hour wait. A salesperson said that stock was running low, but more would be coming in Wednesday.
I went over to the At&T store, and there was only a few people in line. Turns out they are taking “preorders,” for a 7-10 biz day delivery of the iphone. I was talking to the AT&T sales guy and he urged me to deactivate my company discount I receive on AT&T service, in order to get the iphone activated, so I did that at the at&t place in anticipation of when I do buy my phone. The salesguy said I saved myself a headache, because of a “glitch” in the activation system, and could reapply my discount once I got my iPhone.
Not going anywhere near the store soon.