Despite showers, customers line up for Apple's latest smartphone
Despite on and off rain, more than 120 iPhone 3G S customers lined up outside the downtown Apple store before its 7 a.m. opening to buy the new smartphone.
BOSTON – Despite on and off rain, more than 120 iPhone 3G S customers lined up outside the downstore Apple store before its 7 a.m. opening to buy the new smartphone.
That number was well below the more than 1,000 who waited in hot, humid conditions at the same store last July when the second-generation iPhone 3G debuted.
It wasn’t clear whether the rain kept bigger crowds away, but when the store opened, dozens more customers kept arriving and even stood in heavy rain on the sidewalk an hour after the opening, using black umbrellas adorned with the iconic white Apple Inc. logo that were handed out by the store staff.
“I’m in line because it’s an Apple phone and it looks good,” said Andrea Soares of Boston. She said she wanted the video capture offered in the new model. She is also eager to have AT&T Inc., the exclusive iPhone carrier in the U.S., turn on MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service)later this summer so she can send and receive video clips.
Soares, who was born in Brazil and has worked in Germany, said she plans to review the video capture function for German readers of Camcorderinfo.com, where she is a managing editor. But mainly the device will be for her personal use, she said.
Two men in their early 20s, Patrick Morton and Alex Newbury, both of Boston, were the first in line at the Boylston Street store after waiting since 9:30 p.m. Thursday and enduring a rainy cold night to get their new iPhone 3G Ss. By 8 a.m., an hour after opening, they nearly had ported their wireless phone numbers from Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel to AT&T with help from the store staff.
“The wait’s been OK and everybody has been nice, even though it was cold last night,” said Newbury, who admitted that Apple customers are “a little intense as a group.” Newbury expects to use his iPhone for a range of functions, including medical applications, since he is a graduate student at Harvard University studying neuroscience.
Morton and Newbury, who were roommates at College of the Holy Cross, each bought a 32GB device for $299, plus a two-year service plan with voice, data and texting at a cost of $90 a month, a two-year commitment of $2,160, not including taxes and fees. Morton said he was willing to shell out the monthly cost even though his company is planning to give him a BlackBerry smartphone at no charge. “It’s worth it,” he said.
Morton starts his first job at an accounting firm in July and plans to use his iPhone for work and personal use while also providing his own support.
Morton said he was “really disappointed with AT&T that tethering was not an option right now” and has plans to pay up to $30 a month when it becomes available, just to make his laptop wirelessly capable. AT&T has not put a pricetag on tethering, which it plans to eventually provide. The carrier today charges $30 a month for that feature with BlackBerry smartphones.
Jason Shroyer of Boston, a dental resident at Boston University, said he also would use his new iPhone 3G S for browsing the Web for medical information, but he was chiefly interested in MobileMe capabilities, especially for maintaining his busy calendar.
Shroyer said the iPhone 3G S “does everything, it seems” and was glad to start using it as a replacement for a Samsung phone over Verizon.
While customers at the Boylston Street store were happy to put up with the rain to get a new iPhone 3G S, the main concerns they expressed were running the devices over AT&T networks, which some had never used before.
Pat Donaher, a teacher in Boston, said he has never used the AT&T wireless network, but he checked online in advance to make sure he had wireless coverage in his neighborhood. Coverage and reports of AT&T’s slowness on activating MMS and tethering didn’t give him much confidence.
“My single biggest concern with [iPhone 3G S] is AT&T,” Donaher said. He knew a friend who returned an iPhone because wireless coverage was poor where the friend lived. “I’d like to see iPhone on more carrier plans for choice,” he said.
Apple officials would not comment on how many iPhones they had in stock at the Boston store or nationwide.
