SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Christmas came in September this year for Apple devotees, as scores of people across the country turned out early at the company’s stores on Friday to get their hands on new, supersized iPhones.
The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were met with delirious excitement by fans, many of whom had woken up at the crack of dawn — or even camped out — to be among the first to buy the new gadgets. With significantly larger screens, the latest iPhones help Apple match competitors like Samsung, which have long offered devices that blur the line between smartphone and tablet.
Apple loyalists clogged San Francisco’s Marina District, where the line to enter the Apple Store wrapped around the block. Many were fatigued after a sleepless night in the cold, but they perked up once they’d secured the prized phones. Raul Ramos, a San Francisco resident, 68, was jubilant as he strolled out of the store with a gold 6 Plus in hand.
“Once I got the phone, I woke right up,” said Ramos, a retired pharmacist who has camped out for every new gadget since the iPhone 3. “I’m not going home to sleep. I’m going to be playing with it.”
Ramos was fourth in line, sitting just behind Klaus Bandisch, a San Francisco resident, 59, who arrived nearly 24 hours early to secure his spot. Parked in his folding chair, he said a competitive spirit drove him to be among the first to get the iPhone 6 Plus.
“Second is the first loser,” said Bandisch, who is CEO of 140AdAgency.com, a company that makes mobile websites.
Exiting the store with a space grey 6 Plus, Bandisch, a first-time camper, said the device was worth the wait.
“The screen is so crisp and clear,” he gushed. “I love the size, and it seems very light.”
But supplies of the 6 Plus did not last for long. Tony Ring-Dowell, 26, who was about 20th in line, said the device was sold-out by the time he entered the store. He was content with his space grey iPhone 6 though.
“I’m even more excited because the phone is so different,” said Ring-Dowell, a first-grade teacher.
Apple offered the first glimpse of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus last week as part of a wave of new products and services at a star-studded event. A long-awaited smartwatch stole the show, but the spruced up iPhones will mean much more for the company’s bottom line in the near term.
Now that Apple has finally answered the call for larger screens, analysts expect the new iPhones to trigger a gusher of sales. More than 4 million pre-orders for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were placed the day they became available online last week, twice the volume Apple saw for the iPhone 5. If supplies don’t run out, analysts predict that Apple will sell more than 10 million iPhones this weekend, up from 9 million during the opening weekend for the iPhone 5s and 5c last year.
The iPhone hysterics extended far beyond Apple’s Bay Area stomping grounds. In Australia, the first country where the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus went up for sale, more than 1,400 people lined up outside Apple’s flagship store in Sydney Friday morning, according to technology news site ZDNET.
Consumers in Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the U.K. could also buy the devices Friday, before Apple opens up sales in more than 20 additional countries on Sept. 26. But it is unclear when the new iPhones will be released in China as Apple is still waiting for the approval it needs from regulators there. It’s an issue Apple must resolve quickly as 15 to 20 percent of its iPhone shipments are sent to China, said IDC analyst Ramon Llamas.
“If we go through the start of Chinese New Year and there still aren’t any iPhone 6 or 6 Pluses to be found, we’ve got a problem,” he said.
The iPhone 6, which measures 4.7 inches diagonally, costs $199 with a two-year contract, while the 5.5 inch 6 Plus starts at $299. Apart from their superior size, the phones offer sharper displays, improved battery life and an upgraded camera, Apple has said. In addition, the gadgets are equipped with Apple Pay, a mobile payments service that allows users to buy items in stores with a wave of their phones.
Though there was no hope of landing an iPhone in the Bay Area until Friday morning, some eager Apple customers started lining up long before.
Shortly before 5 p.m. on Thursday evening, Abdul Karim, a 20-year-old criminal justice student, was firmly ensconced in a reclining chair outside the Apple Store in Palo Alto. Behind him was a cue of 50 more Apple fans just like him who had begun arriving at their places in line in the 48 hours before.
“We got here Tuesday at 1 p.m.,” he said, surrounded on the sidewalk by his girlfriend, cousin and brother. “I came because I have to get the phone. I need it and getting it first is important.”
There was another reason, Karim said, that he had shown up so early.
“It’s fun at the same time,” he said. “I’ve got my family and girlfriend with me and we all tell stories and have a great time. We slept really well last night with our sleeping bags on a wrestling mat. Cops passed by but just nodded and laughed.”
Karim said he will buy the 128-gigabyte version of the iPhone 6 Plus because he loves its big screen.
“It’s like having an iPad, but much smaller and easier to carry around,” he said.
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