Customers line up for iPhone launch
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For Jessica Rodriguez, waiting four days for an iPhone is nothing when the prize is "the next big thing."
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Apple Inc.'s  iPhone hits  store shelves on Friday in a consumer spectacle that has  whipped gadget fans into a frenzy over a device that challenges  business as usual in the mobile phone industry.
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SAN FRANCISCO - The professional critics have offered their iPhone opinions, giving Apple&#39;s new cellphone mostly a thumbs up. Now it&#39;s time for thousands of consumers to weigh in after they bought iPhones this weekend. The gadget went on sale starting Friday night at nearly 2,000 Apple and AT&amp;T stores after six months of anticipation. USA TODAY heard from more than 350 people who said they bought an iPhone. Based on their first weekend&#39;s experience, virtually all of them said they&#39;d do it again.
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Mac enthusiasts line-up early, equipped with their wish list for Steve Jobs.
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Apple Inc. begins its first foray into the wireless telephone business on June 29 with the release of the iPhone. Millions of loyal Apple customer s can hardly wait for the device, which combines a cell phone, music player, and Internet-access device. But Apple's rivals in the cell phone business seem just as enthusiastic.
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Some of those in line for the much-coveted Apple handset are doing so to put the device on eBay and donate the proceeds to charity.
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(InfoWorld) - Apple began selling its iPhone Friday, ending six months of waiting by consumers and rival smartphone vendors. Store managers at AT&T retail shops and Apple's own stores are throwing open their doors at 6 p.m. in each U.S. time zone, having closed the shops several hours earlier in an attempt to control expected crowds. At the Apple store in the SoHo section of New York, there was a carnival atmosphere throughout the afternoon, which built to a climax with a crowd of hundreds counting down from five, right before 6 p.m. In the last hour before doors opened, a man was even heard selling spots close to the front of the line to those who were closest to the back. Amid whoops and hollers, movie director Spike Lee was the first to walk into the store, saying he was there for charity. A Brooklyn, New York-based charity called Keep a Child Alive grabbed first place in line earlier in the week, using its position to publicize its plans to auction an iPhone on eBay and use the money for charity. "They asked me to be a part of it," Lee said. He noted that the charity did the "hard part" waiting in line all week in front of the store and said he felt lucky to be part of the effort. Actress Whoopi Goldberg was second in line. When asked what she was doing there, she commented on the media crowding around her, saying "I don't really know at this point." When asked whether she was going to buy a phone, she said yes. About 10 minutes before the doors opened, an Apple employee came out with instructions and tips for the crowd. He said people could buy up to two phones each and encouraged people to buy iPhones before shopping for accessories. By morning, the line outside the SoHo store stretched for three blocks. Some enthusiasts were napping in folding chairs while others talked on the phone or to each other as they waited. Temperatures had dipped nearly 20 degrees Fahrenheit since Tuesday, and though the skies threatened rain, the weather provided a more comfortable atmosphere for iPhone enthusiasts than the summer heat that assaulted them earlier in the week. Bill Mac and Jonathan Bricklin had another way to pass the time -- they had a small ping-pong table set up as a way to promote their social networking site, The Naked PingPong Club, which encourages people to meet by playing ping-pong. Mac said he was waiting for the iPhone because it would allow the two to run their business entirely from a phone without needing a PC. "In LA [the mobile office] is about your car, in New York it's about your phone," he said. Later, Mac took a break from line to visit a local cafÃ©, Aroma, where he was overheard on his current phone telling someone about the two-iPhone limit. Meanwhile, at an AT&T store in downtown Boston, Craig Henry took a sick day from work to gain the second place in a line of 65 people. "I have a Motorola Q and a BlackBerry, but this lets me get rid of the phones and the iPod," Henry said. "I'll sell it (the iPod) to you if you want." Apple has prepared for what it calls "iDay" with the company's customary secrecy, sharing few details about the phone's internal workings or how many phones it has manufactured for the launch. The company has said it wants to sell 10 million units worldwide by 2008, but CEO Steve Jobs warned on Friday that he may not have made enough iPhones to meet demand for the launch. In fact, that goal is modest by Apple's own standards; the company sold more than 10 million iPods during the first quarter of 2007 alone. Other factors that could lead to slow sales are consumer wariness about the iPhone's battery life, the utility of its virtual keyboard, and its high price. The phone comes in a 4GB model for $499 or 8GB model for $599 and requires a two-year AT&T service plan ranging from $60 per month to $100 per month. However, Apple says the iPhone will win converts with its touchscreen interface and combined functionality of a mobile phone, iPod music player, and mobile Internet browser. The company says those features will differentiate the iPhone from other smartphones like the Motorola Q, Palm Treo, Research in Motion BlackBerry, Samsung BlackJack, Sony-Ericsson W900-series, Nokia N-series, and LG Electronics Prada. To handle the expected rush for iPhones, Apple has extended the hours in its 164 U.S. retail stores until midnight. But the majority of customers will buy the phone at one of the 1,800 AT&T retail shops, also scheduled to push their usual 8 p.m. closing time back to 10 p.m.
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With the iPhone launch still over a week away, mobile market research firm M:Metrics reports that 19 million Americans have shown strong interest in purchasing the device.
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By Associated Press  SAN ANTONIO -- Customers clamoring to get their hands on Apple Inc.'s highly anticipated iPhone better make sure they're at the right store.  The combination cell phone, media player and wireless Web device will only be sold at stores owned by Apple Inc.
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Love it or hate it, the frenzy around Apple's iPhone is forcing consumers to think about what they want from a mobile device.
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About 19 million U.S. cell phone users are ready to buy Apple Inc.'s iPhone, nearly double the number Apple projected it would sell by the end of 2008, according to a new survey.
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Survey underscores the demand for Apple's debut cell phone.
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By Jason Gertzen  KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The amazing Apple hype machine soon could help unaffiliated wireless carriers sell bunches of music-playing wireless phones.   The debut of the much-heralded iPhone is scheduled for June 29.
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(InfoWorld) - When Apple launches the iPhone on Friday, it is set to get a jump on its competitors and spark a flurry of new phone designs, regardless of how well the device actually sells. By introducing a combined smartphone, mobile e-mail platform, and MP3 music player with a touchscreen interface, Apple has sent other hardware vendors running back to their drawing boards. And the company has enjoyed positive press coverage since CEO Steve Jobs announced the iPhone in January, analysts said. Apple is feeding the fire with strong advertising in its retail stores. On Monday, staffers at the Apple store in the Cambridgeside Galleria mall in Cambridge, Massachusetts, wore black T-shirts with the logo "the wait is almost over," printed above an image of a calendar page for Friday, June 29. iPhone anticipation has already created a "halo effect" of increased sales for Apple's notebook and desktop PCs, an impact that is likely to increase after the launch, according to a report from ChangeWave Research. Apple posted a strong profit for the last period despite struggling with a U.S. federal investigation into executives backdating their stock options. In April,Â Apple beat Wall Street expectations by posting a profit of $770 million for the second quarter, an 88 percent rise from that period last year. Because the company has already garnered media attention and a sales boost from iPhone demand, Apple will suffer little damage even if the device is a flop in retail sales, one analyst said. "No way Apple will seriously impact Nokia or Motorola or Samsung, who combined sell over a billion phones a year. But if Apple manages to sell several million, then that is probably pretty good for their overall business," said analyst Jack Gold, founder of the research firm J. Gold Associates. "I think the potential gold mine is in the services, not the phone hardware." The iPhone will bring new subscribers to Apple's iTunes online music store, and Apple could make more money if it decides to launch future wireless mobile products like navigation, location-based services, VoIP telephony, and video streaming, Gold said. In the meantime, Apple has already given a headache to competitors scurrying to catch up, such as Motorola, Samsung, and LG Electronics. Even vendors with comparable products -- like Nokia's N Series and High Tech Computer's HTC Touch phones -- lack Apple's cachet and will have trouble competing on store shelves, he said. In fact, some experts are warning that iPhone sales could fall short of Apple's high expectations. Their criticism includes potential user confusion about Apple's "virtual keyboard," a battery that may fade too fast and is not user-replaceable, andÂ resistance by some corporate IT departmentsÂ to the added expense and security risk of supporting mobile e-mail networks in addition to the servers they use to support Research in Motion's BlackBerry device. Those drawbacks could limit the iPhone's success in the business market, said Shaw Wu, an analyst with American Technology Research. Still, the iPhone will be popular with those who tend to use smartphones more by scrolling through menus than typing long messages and who have made Apple's iPod music player a huge hit despite similar concerns about its battery, Wu said. Likewise, consumers will likely shrug off corporate security concerns and use mobile e-mail systems from GoogleÂ and Yahoo. In the long run, Apple will use the iPhone to beat its competitors in creating an end-to-end channel for digital media, spanning from Mac PCs to the mobile iPod music player, iTunes online store, and Apple TV set-top box for sharing Internet and television video content. The only thing Apple could do to spread that net even wider would be to offer iPhone models at less than the current $499 for a 4GB version and $599 for the 8GB, Wu said.
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Among consumers, the excitement around Apple Inc.'s iPhone, launching on Friday, centers on its cool looks and innovative interface. In the cell phone industry, the iPhone will be closely watched because it breaks several conventions governing the relationships between handset manufacturers, carriers and consumers. If successful, Apple could end up changing the way phones and the industry work.
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Apple's much-anticipated iPhone will hit US stores on 29 June, at a cost of $499 for the entry product.
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Vodafone on Monday geared itself up for the launch of Apple&#39;s iPhone in the UK by unveiling its range of mobile phones for the all-important Christmas market and an &quot;all you can eat&quot; music download service.