View From the Line: The iPhone 4 Is Bigger Than Elvis

The iPhone 4 is finally in stores and the lines are truly massive. With pre-orders of more than 600,000 units, the crowds showed up early and were prepared to wait in long lines.
I know, because I was one of those customers. I waited more than seven hours for my iPhone 4, after arriving just before 6 a.m. at my local Apple Store— and keep in mind, this was an Apple Store inside a mall. In four years of following Apple launch events from this location, I have truly never seen anything like it. And we weren’t even the busiest store in Atlanta.


Waiting in line for seven hours for the privilege of forking over several hundred dollars for a gadget isn’t for everyone, but at least in the pre-order half of the line (where there were easily more than 600 likeminded fools along with me), the conversation was good, spirits were high, and the Apple Store staff was nice enough to keep us supplied with water, coffee and assorted snacks.

6:00 am Apple Store at Perimeter Mall, Atlanta, GA

Just to put seven hours (and that was for pre-orders, mind you) in perspective, my iPhone 4 line buddy told me that this line even outpaced lines for concert tickets in the 1960s and 1970s. Getting tickets for Elvis only took five hours, he told me. The iPhone 4? Seven hours and counting!

While line efficiency varied from Apple Store to Apple Store, the long lines full of eager-iPhone fans is universal. Of course, the only problem with waiting nearly a whole work day to get a phone? By the time it’s over with you just want to go to sleep.

How long was your wait for your iPhone 4?

Posted in: