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Last night, we noted that lines were beginning to form for the Verizon iPhone, which went on sale this morning at Apple and Verizon retail stores, as well as Best Buy and select Wal-Mart stores. But in the light of morning, lines are short in many locations, particularly at Apple stores.


102018-verizon_launch_fifth_avenue.jpg


Apple's flagship Fifth Avenue store in Manhattan (Source: CNET)
With much of the country seeing frigid overnight temperatures, some shoppers may have opted to not stand in the cold while others may have taken advantage of home delivery options for the device, but lines still seem much shorter than expected. CNET is running a live blog with staffers in both New York City and San Francisco, and flagship Apple stores in both locations saw nearly no line ahead of early openings at 7:00 AM local time.
New York 6:50 a.m. ET: It's 18 degrees here in New York City, and there are now eight people in line at the Fifth Ave. Apple store. Queens resident Akira Sawada, 32, is first in line--he arrived at 5 a.m. There are more Apple employees inside the Apple store than there are outside.

New York 7:07 a.m. ET: People are in the Apple store. The line of about 10 people was quickly ushered in at 7 a.m. We are now waiting to talk to people who are walking out of the store.
A similar situation was seen in San Francisco, where cold temperatures couldn't be blamed for low turnout. According to CNET, only two people were in line at Apple's Stockton Street flagship store just minutes before opening, with "literally more Apple Store employees, police officers and reporters--each--than people in line to buy iPhones."

We've received sporadic reports of significantly longer lines at some Verizon stores, but still nowhere near what many had expected.

Article Link: Verizon iPhone Launches to Short Lines, Cold Temperatures
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Doc750

macrumors 6502a
Aug 11, 2010
803
4
need more of you to switch over to verizon. So that AT&T keeps dropping their prices ... so get on out there
 

BenFL

macrumors member
Aug 11, 2010
39
0
What happen to all the "As soon as Verizon gets the iPhone I'm switching"?
If you need me, I'll be on a phone call while I browse the web. :D
 

dstankus

macrumors regular
May 19, 2010
100
20
There were around 40 people on line outside the Verizon store on Water Street (lower Manhattan) at 9am this morning.
 

alectheking

macrumors 6502a
Mar 9, 2010
584
28
So what time can I pick my reserved phone up from Apple?? The email said starts at 12 p.m. but here it says they are already opening and serving people? I would rather not wait another 5 hours for nothing
 

djransom

macrumors 601
May 14, 2008
4,044
165
Chi-Town
My sister went and picked hers up this AM from the Apple store. She said she was the 1st @ 4AM and by the time they opened @ 7AM it was only 3 other people behind her. She was a new subscriber to VZW.
 

vincenz

macrumors 601
Oct 20, 2008
4,285
220
What's worse, waiting in line for 5 hours to get it, or being stared at by two dozen Apple employees while buying one?
 

MarlboroLite

macrumors 6502a
Oct 29, 2007
581
5
the 13 colonies
Well you know since the pre-ordering process for current customers went pretty smoothly and something like 500,000 already got one...it seems like people might have learned that it is much better to get the phone in the comfort of your own home than spending 10 hours on a line in freezing temps!
 

kdarling

macrumors P6
It's really cold right now in a lot of the country. We're talking frostbite in 30 minutes or less.

That's one good reason Apple usually launches iPhones during the summer... so people can be outside and happy. Well, that, and so people don't notice right away that they can't do anything on the phone while wearing gloves ;)

Smart people order online instead.

Also, with the first iPhone, people had six months' warning to get ready to buy. With this one, there's been what, a few weeks?
 

Schizoid

macrumors 65816
May 29, 2008
1,043
1,316
UK
Hey, Verizon...

renamed your lines "queues", advertise free cups of tea and biscuits - Simples!
 

NebulaClash

macrumors 68000
Feb 4, 2010
1,810
0
Yup, this is typical. Lots of stories about how the Verizon iPhone won't sell in as large a number as expected. And then at the next quarterly Apple report, we'll find out they sold MORE than anyone expected. As usual.

This sort of breathless micro-reporting is typical of Wall Street thinking in general. Everything is either black or white:

"Ohmigod, Verizon sold more iPhones in their first day than any other device! Buy!"

"Ohmigod, I don't see any lines in Salem, NH! Sell!"

Chill, people. Millions will be sold over the next few weeks. Mostly online.
 

beebler

macrumors regular
Oct 2, 2009
162
0
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8C148a)

I thought Verizon users always have a stadium's worth of people with them. At least that's how it is in their commercials. False advertising, even Apple bit.
 

CMK0110

macrumors newbie
Feb 3, 2011
6
0
North Carolina
I think we're seeing a few things at work here.

1) Most of the people who refused to leave Verizon's network for the iPhone rushed to pre-order last week. There isn't a massive untapped audience for the iPhone. If people wanted it bad enough, they would have gone to AT&T already. This phone is for those who couldn't bring themselves to sacrifice service for a device.

2) The AT&T - Verizon iPhone war is just getting started and this first round isn't a fair fight. Customers' contracts aren't up right now and many don't see it worth it to change to a carrier mid-cycle for a phone they already have. Over time people will now have the choice of choosing the network they see best fit. AT&T had a huge head start and that wasn't going to change over night.
 

deadkennedy

macrumors 6502
May 22, 2010
320
0
Hey, Verizon...

renamed your lines "queues", advertise free cups of tea and biscuits - Simples!

Free tea and biscuits. You're forgetting we're in US. First thing I'd do I'd check where's my wallet and what are they trying to get out of me.
 

Rudy69

macrumors 6502a
Mar 30, 2009
790
2,415
Personally at this point I would just wait until June for the next iPhone... It's so close
 

dagamer34

macrumors 65816
May 1, 2007
1,359
101
Houston, TX
Here's a thought: If you're going to pay for an ETF on your current plan, people are probably not going to do it for a 8-month old phone!

Expect long lines in June.
 

ghostface147

macrumors 601
May 28, 2008
4,167
5,140
Hahahahaha. Verizon iPhone fail. Or because people who wanted it already pre-ordered. Or it was too cold. Something.
 
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