Americans get the new Apple of their eyes

By Arun Kumar, IANS

Washington : Thousands of Americans finally laid their hands on the new Apple of their eyes – the iPhone – after standing for hours in long lines reminiscent of ones on the release of a Bollywood blockbuster in India.


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But there the similarity ends. Here the fans of the much hyped gizmo that lets you surf the web, watch a movie, take a picture and even talk on the phone with just a stab on its tiny screen waited out hours of heat and rain for a chance to be among the first to shell out $500 to $600 for the device.

Some said they expected the phone that hit shelves at Apple and AT&T stores across the United States Friday night to change their lives. Others were motivated by hopes of making hefty profits by selling it to the well heeled with little time to spare.

The phones soon popped up for sale online at inflated prices. On online classifieds site Craigslist, most listings ranged between $750 and $1,500, with one optimist asking for $10,000. One iPhone offered on auction Web site eBay had 23 bids and a price of $1,325.

At one Washington store, a line of some 200 people snaked out the door, through the mall and onto the sidewalk with some standing there since 4 a.m. taking turns to get a bite asking one next in line to hold their positions.

At another store a fan showed up at midnight. He plopped a mattress on the sidewalk and brought enough junk food to sustain him and his four friends. When no one else showed up for several hours, they almost abandoned camp.

To prevent cutting in line, employees at some Apple stores handed out coloured arm bands to mark customers' places. Off-duty police officers were hired to stand guard at each of AT&T's 70 locations in the Washington area.

Apple's carefully orchestrated marketing and controlled media strategy helped heap fuel on consumer and media fascination, said the Washington Post. "This entire launch was scripted right down to the second," it said citing Colin Martin, AT&T's director of sales for the Washington region.

Apple even kept its employees in the dark. A week before the launch, Apple started prohibiting Apple Store employees from bringing camera-enabled cell phones and laptops into the store out of fear that a glimpse of the device could slip out. When the first batch of iPhones arrived at stores last week, they were scattered through the stockroom, hidden among piles of other boxes.

The tight security may not have been necessary, some Apple loyalists said. Compared with Sony's release of PlayStation3 last year-which triggered robberies, pepper-spray attacks and even a shooting, the iPhone launch was tame, the Post recalled.

Even after 15 hours of waiting in 90 percent humidity and bouts of rain, iPhone hopefuls shared snacks, made communal coffee runs and exchanged e-mail addresses to swap their iPhone experiences. Similar scenes were witnessed in several cities as thousands of gadget fans made what a media report described as "an orderly pilgrimage to stores". Crowds outside some of Apple's outlets cheered as their doors opened at 6 p.m. local time.

Apple plans to sell 10 million iPhones in 2008, which would amount to a 1 percent share of the global market. Starting with sales in Europe later this year in the run up to the holiday season, Apple may start selling the iPhone in Asia sometime in 2008.

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