If you got an iPhone how long did you have to wait in line?

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July 14, 2008
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Comments (23)

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | July 14, 2008 - 7:14pm

I put down 5-7, but if you add the time I spent in the morning before I realized I wouldn't make it to work if I stayed on line...I was definitely fully in the 7+, if not 10+ range.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | July 14, 2008 - 7:21pm

I'd say 3.5. We got free smart water and dominoes pizza so it made the wait more bearable.

Zach Matzkin (not verified) | July 14, 2008 - 7:27pm

Went to the Apple store at the mall at 5PM on Saturday - waited about 15 mins...

Justin (not verified) | July 14, 2008 - 7:34pm

I got to the Apple Store early Saturday morning, there was only one person waiting to get an iPhone so I was in and out in about 15 minutes.

Tattooed gaijin (not verified) | July 14, 2008 - 7:36pm

In Japan, I was number 62 in line at the main Harajuku store launch. I waited for 20hrs. From 11am on the 10th until opening on the 11th at 7am. Glad I got there early because by morning there were 1500 people in line!!
Getting in was rather quick. they had 100 booths open to service people. I was in the store at about 7:15am. Finished a little over an hour later. I would have been out sooner however, my particular clerk had computer problems and was a complete spaz.

DistortedLoop | July 14, 2008 - 7:53pm

 I have a poor friend who stood in line with me at Apple for 5 hours to get our phones, and in the store another hour trying to buy it.  She got turned away on Friday because of a mistake at AT&T about some employee discount flag on her phone.  She went to AT&T on Saturday, and after an hour got turned away.  She went to another AT&T on Sunday, and after over two hours, they sold out two customers ahead of her.  She's been in line as I type this for 4 and a half hours at another Apple Store which is only handling about 10 customers per hour, and telling people they will be turned away at 8:15.  Looks like she's out of luck again today.

She's put in about 14 hours trying to get one of these things, just standing in line.

DistortedLoop | July 14, 2008 - 9:10pm

 And after a five hour wait, my poor friend got turned away with 10 people in front of her.  There were only 40 people in front of her at the start of the five hours.  This is unreal.

Eric A (not verified) | July 14, 2008 - 8:56pm

I have not been able to find one yet cause AT&T sucks so much they did not order enough and the nearest Apple store to State College, PA is 3+ hours away.

H (not verified) | July 14, 2008 - 10:04pm

Just to point out, it's Apple's fault for hoarding the stock, not AT&T's fault for not ordering enough, the same happened with o2. Apple royally screwed the stock control up on this one. On both a global and national level.

admin | July 14, 2008 - 9:06pm

I live within blocks of the Apple Soho Store and 2 AT&T stores.  The AT&T Stores sold out within 2 hours.  They want to be able to sell more but Apple won't give them iPhones.  The Apple Store in Soho has had a 3-6 hour line since Friday.  So I am iPhoneless.  Very frustrating.  I wish there was a way to protest this.  Unfortunately, it is easily the best phone out there and  I am not going to get an inferior product just to smite Apple for making me wait forever for their stupid product.

 

ThomasV (not verified) | July 14, 2008 - 11:31pm

I got mine thurday at 6 o'clock after we closed our shop.
Just grabbed one out of the stock

rr (not verified) | July 14, 2008 - 11:36pm

for those that didn't take marketing in college think about this: if apple gives more stock to the at&t stores they won't get people into the apple stores to look at their other products, notably the computers which are high net profit centers. i commend apple on not missing this strategy, oh yeah, i'm typing this on one of my two imacs while listening to tunes on one of my two ipods. i am waiting for two more weeks when my sprint contract runs out to buy my iphone. i guess theres something to be said about the "halo effect". all in all, being of average skill with electronics, i love the ease in playing on apple products.

Cool Cat (not verified) | July 14, 2008 - 11:40pm

I was first in line at the Apple Store in Mayfair Mall (Milwaukee, WI) on Friday morning. I got there just before 6am so the only waiting I had to do was until the store opened at 8am.

PB&J (not verified) | July 15, 2008 - 2:06am

I was inline at Carphonewarehouse (Friday 11th July - Oxford St, London, UK).

I had a 16G in my hand, but the system crashed - was told I would have to come back later to finish the process and sign.

I went back at the agreed time and they had "no record" of me even though my bank called me up to query why my account was "pinged" over 8 times that morning. Obviously I was more than a little annoyed.

That morning, I was told I had the last 16G - while I was waiting I saw 2 customers come in after me and ask for the manager. They had a 16G on hold. Thought this was unfair as the company (well O2 and Apple) policy was NO reservations.

Next time, going to O2 or the Apple store directly.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | July 15, 2008 - 3:48am

You really ought to have asked - how long did you have to wait until you had an active iphone.

Am an existing 2G iphone user. Was 6th in line at an O2 store on friday. System crashed as my upgrade was going through - went back at lunch to collect the iphone - that was 12.30pm friday. It is 11.45am Tuesday now and still no service. Rang O2 last night to be told it will be another 48 hours.

Classic - basically it could be 5 days before i have an iphone i can actually use

So, to continue the thread - 95 hours and still counting !!

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | July 15, 2008 - 3:56am

Apple should be ashamed for putting their customers through this. The iTunes activation used last year was the way to go.

Let me order the phone via the web store or walk in a store to buy one and then activate at home.

I was in line for 45 minutes at an AT&T store and they had only processed 4 people within in that time. There were 40 people in front of me when they announced that they only had 16 iPhones left. I went home and will wait a week or two before trying again.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | July 15, 2008 - 7:33am

its not apple who should be ashamed in the UK as it was solely o2s fault and their fucked up server

Alex (not verified) | July 15, 2008 - 11:14am

5 hours it took me, from 8am until 1pm but so worth it. After my account was finally activated took it home and actually it worked straight away, I was happy to find. No waiting to use the phone functions or anything, made a call on the way to work later.

imagine engine | July 15, 2008 - 10:13pm

 I'm on a wait list till the dealer gets more of the iPhone 3G 16 GB black in stock. The authorized Rogers dealers in the GVA sold out of this version with in the first hour on July 11. I seriously dislike UPS as Rogers chosen courier so I'm not ordering one through Rogers Customer Care.

herko (not verified) | July 16, 2008 - 12:52am

here in the Netherlands the t-mobile corporate network for creating new accounts and assigning phones to them went bonkers... I was nr. 14 in line, and had to wait 5 hours just to get inside the store.. they had 3 booths open (I don't live in a very big city...), but it took several hours just to be able to walk out of the store with an iPhone. This had nothing to do with stock shortage, and everything with bad planning and testing of the registration systems.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | July 16, 2008 - 3:20am

Because of our super-distributor here in France, we have the chance of waiting a minimum of 150 hours (6days) as they were unable to get Iphone 3G ready before july 17, when the rest of the world could get it 6 days sooner...

Thank you orange, you really are fantastic, no matter the reason why, you're always n°1

bass_hit (not verified) | July 16, 2008 - 6:13am

OK, I woke up a 4:59
Out the door by 5:00
7th in line at my local AT&T store by 5:20
Waited in line until 8:30
Sold the iPhone 3G by 8:50.
Making my first calls on it by 9:00
Could not sync the iPhone due to secondary activation required at home due the the iTunes servers being down until it went through at 11:30.

totally worth it ;-)

daniel (not verified) | July 26, 2008 - 7:02am

I was in line for 6 hours , and i didnt even buy it -.- …………