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iPhone Queues in UK Apple Stores

J

JimmyMcJim

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 25, 2008
5
0
I want to buy a 16GB iPhone 3G but I'm not a big fan of queueing and not fussed about being one of the first to have one.

As far as I can tell there's still no point in going to any of my local O2 stores.

However I'm going to be in London this weekend so thought I might give one of the Apple stores a go (I'm a new customer, not an O2 upgrader)

Two weeks on from the launch - can anyone give any first hand experiece of how long the queues are in the UK Apple stores?

Ta!
 
I got mine a week ago at Regent Street and it was a 2 hour queue.

They had approx 15 workstations dealing with contracts, credit checks and so on. The guy I dealt with said they were planning on reducing the number of workstations once demand died down a bit so I can see the wait continuing.
 
Thanks

I'm going to give the one in Kingston a go tomorrow and I'll try and get there for opening time (lunchtime - much more civilised for a Sunday!). We'll see!!
 
I wlked into the Solihull store at 11.30 on Tuesday morning, asked if they had the 16gb black, which they did and bought it there and then. There were only three other people in the store and one of those was my mate! Phone in stock, no queues, in and out with an activated phone in about 25 mins. I'm now happy as larry and typing this on my phone in the garden in the sunshine!
 
It's us existing 1st gen iPhone customers that are made to suffer, as we cannot upgrade to the 3G in an Apple store, only at O2 or CPW, which have literally less than 10 16GB black models per day, and to get those, you have to queue up for 2+ hours prior to those stores opening.
"Forget about it" if you want a white one, lol.

Oh well, I guess I have to take the "glass is half full" approach, seeing as I at least have an iPhone.
 
Apple stores have the phone is stock, but you will need to wait no matter what simply because of the activation process. They have both white and black.
 
Dont go to the Apple store in Regent Street! There have been so many activations not done by that store it's not funny - go there and expect the phone function of your iphone not to work until you call o2. and from there it'll be at least 24-36 hours.

apple stores are ok - but not that one for some reason.
 
I got one on Friday am from Kingston. Very good experience.

They seemed to open a bit earlier than the advertised time. Might be worth ringing or perhaps getting there a bit early?

Wasn't a queue really but took ages to get served (The 3 people already sat down buying were all buying two each and were having credit check problems...) I had to wait around 40mins. Had they been 'normal' customers I'd have probably only have had to wait 20mins or so.

When served - in my case only took about 15/20mins to buy and activate. Guy who served me was very professional and helpful.

Tip: If using utility bills as ID - check and make sure they are within 3 months - I just grabbed a handful from the drawer to take with me but nearly got caught out by most of them being older than I thought!
 
As far as credit and identity checks were concerned, all the Solihull store needed was a photo driving licence and a debit card with a large enough balance for the phone purchase and from which to take the direct debit details from for the monthly line rental.
 
Well... Went to the Kingston store today about 12.30 and had no problems at all. Like some of you have said, only had to wait about 10 minutes to be seen and then credit check / purchase took about 20 mins. They had no black 16GBs so I got a white one - looks pretty cool I think, allthough I know some of you will tell me its girly. Looks like an old school iPod I think!

Only thing is the GPS doesn't seem to be able to locate me in the maps application. Anyone else had this problem? Not sure if its to do with where I am and the GPS signal or the phone itself.
 
I got mine yesterday just after lunchtime at the CPW on the strand. Lots of 16GB's. I was also chatting with an O2 guy in Guildford who suggested that they were likely to be getting increasingly larger numbers of 16's as of this week in their retail stores
 
If you can get away from Regents Street there generally don't seem to be queues anymore. Was in Lakeside and Bluewater at weekend, both had iphones in stock and no queue.

O2 & CPW in both places had them in too, and this was at 3pm.

I got mine the other week in O2, as was upgrading from 1st gen, and was in and out in 20min.

BTW to the poster whose GPS doesn't work I have an issue, yours may be the same. To get the GPS working frst of all try leaving the phone outside trying to locate you (ball spinning in maps) for about 10-15min this seems to help get the first lock - in future much quicker. Also I have had problems with the cell tower location indoors where i live, but when I'm at my office in nottingham (150miles away long story) it works perfectly. - Think its an issue with some O2 towers not giving the right info / or apple changing the code for triangulation as this happens both on my first gen upgraded to 2.0 and on my new 3G.
 
Thanks for the info - I've actually experienced the same thing. The GPS signal doesn't seem to be strong enough to get a lock where I live but it worked fine at my office this morning after a minute or so of searching. At least I know there's not an issue with the phone itself! Doesn't really matter if it doesn't work at home as I'm pretty confident I know my way around there!!
 
JimmyMcJim said:
Thanks

I'm going to give the one in Kingston a go tomorrow and I'll try and get there for opening time (lunchtime - much more civilised for a Sunday!). We'll see!!
Click to expand...

I got mine at the Kingston store around a week ago. there were 4 people in line and took around an hour to get my phone. The rest of the store was a zoo but the iPhone line wasn't too bad.

ooops he got it already my bad for not noticing the date of the post.
 
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