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Verizon iPhone Launches to Short Lines, Cold Temperatures

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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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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.
Click to expand...
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
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2011/02/10/verizon-iphone-launches-to-short-lines-cold-temperatures/
Last edited by a moderator:
need more of you to switch over to verizon. So that AT&T keeps dropping their prices ... so get on out there
 
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
 
There were around 40 people on line outside the Verizon store on Water Street (lower Manhattan) at 9am this morning.
 
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
 
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.
 
What's worse, waiting in line for 5 hours to get it, or being stared at by two dozen Apple employees while buying one?
 
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!
 
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?
 
Hey, Verizon...

renamed your lines "queues", advertise free cups of tea and biscuits - Simples!
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
Schizoid said:
Hey, Verizon...

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

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.
 
Personally at this point I would just wait until June for the next iPhone... It's so close
 
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.
 
Hahahahaha. Verizon iPhone fail. Or because people who wanted it already pre-ordered. Or it was too cold. Something.
 
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