“Thousands of eager consumers braved long lines across the globe in hopes of securing Apple’s highly-anticipated new iPad,” Brett Molina reports for USA Today.
“Lizandra Osorio, 23, of Bridgeton, N.J., first tried a New Jersey Walmart at midnight, but the store had only a few iPads, so she drove to a shopping mall in Delaware at 2 a.m. Hundreds of people were ahead of her,” Molina reports. “‘I was planning to be first in line, but that plan failed,’ Osorio laughed, wrapped in a fleece blanket outside the mall. ‘If I can get one in my hands, it’ll be worth it.'”
Molina reports, “In Japan, more than 450 people waited at an Apple store in Tokyo in hopes of getting an iPad, the Wall Street Journal reports. One student, Ryo Watanabe, tells the Journal he and a friend took turns waiting in line for 37 hours to be first in line. ‘The fact that the display has gotten better is a big enough reason for me to get it,’ Watanabe tells the paper.”
Read more in the full article, which includdes photos and videos, here.
Related articles:
Video of long lines as iPad goes on sale in Japan – March 16, 2012
New iPad launch: Live from the streets – March 16, 2012
Apple co-founder Woz in line for new iPad at Apple Store (with video) – March 16, 2012
Early ‘Day One’ photos show long lineups as new iPad launches around the world – March 16, 2012
Huge crowds line up for Apple’s new iPad on 1st day – March 16, 2012
It’s awesome! No wonder the iHaters are in full force today.
http://money.cnn.com/2012/03/16/technology/apple-ipad/index.htm
I was reading on another Mac news site how lines were actually shorter than expected and dwlindled away quickly once the stores opened. There doesn’t appear the same buzz surrounding this iPad and that’s why the share price has fallen. I have no repect for this website anymore. It seems to me that you take every opportunity to talk up Apple in order to make the share price go up and up. You are not journalists. You are only interested in the stock price. Presumably you own a lot of shares and want to make some money as they go up. This is not objective reporting, this is stock manipulation on a grand scale.
I read that article as well. Just curious… which viewpoint is the truth… and how can you tell? It’s really difficult getting an honest and objective answer on almost anything these days. Politics, nope. Global warming, hopeless. Apple, not likely.
Ah. A newbie.
Today, I’ve seen an awful lot of articles about thinned crowds and unsold iPads. Associating the shortened lines with Apple’s stalled share price is causing much speculation that Wall Street is getting cold feet about Apple stock. The two healthy share price upgrades didn’t do a darn thing for Apple’s share movement. It’s easy to say that Apple is definitely cooling off after its torrid run-up. Many think that any positive news will boost Apple and any negative news will take it down. It could be market manipulation, but it’s hard to tell since Apple shares are merely staying flat.
I am a Bay Area resident and I went to the local 24hr Wal-mart last night and got the lest iPad. I got in line at 11:25pm and they literally went on sale at 12:01am. This morning I went to the local Target store to pick one up for the wife. Arrived at 8:10am. Target opens at 8:00am. I was able to grab one and they had about 20 more with no line. Went to the local Best Buy (need 2 more for the parents) and the line was short at about 8:25am. The line was short enough (plus it’s raining) that the manager decided to allow people to wait inside of the store and they decided not to handout tickets, instead waiting until 10:00am with no tickets for the release. I left because 10:00am is too late (I just wanted to grab the ticket and then have my wife pick up the item later) and I needed to get to work in San Francisco. I work 2 blocks from the Apple flagship SF store. I walked in at 9:30am and have a reciept with a time stamp of 9:32am on it. I was able to secure 2 iPads. Additionally, the staff had all models available still and had a display of at least 500-750 (I snapped a pic to prove this) of them behind the main counter with about 50 blue shirts and no major line, just a lot of walk-ins such as myself. My point is, the experience this year is definately a lot different then previous releases. I’m not sure if demand is down of if supply is really high (i’m hoping supply is just high) but the lines aren’t there this year. I enjoy Apple products as much as everyone else on this site, but objectively speaking, not being able to get an iPad today (at least in the Bay Area) is exagerated.
There were about 15 people in line at a Best Buy here in the Deep South (town of about 100,000). The store manager said they have 4x more stock (100 units) than they did last year. Last year they had a line of about 100 people.
The only reason I was there is I wanted to get one for the iWife’s birthday next week. If I placed a web order, she would have taken delivery well before her birthday and would have known exactly what it is. That’s the problem with iWives.
The short line was great for my evil purposes, and it would have totally sucked to be stuck in a long line. I’m guessing that many people who endured the lines last year wouldn’t be in a hurry to repeat the experience.
Mine’s not even out of the shipping box and it’s more awesome than ever.
Very little wait in Chicago at 9:30 am
So unless there is a violent riot at every store and people get trampled to death… It’s a bad day for Apple.
I start to believe that most stock analyst and some investors are the BIGGEST ASSHOLES!
Not exactly. I believe what is happening is people use the previous launch and release lines as a benchmark for demand. If less people are in line then people assume demand is lower. However, as I mentioned before, it could mean that Apple had an extremely large supply, something I considered when I noticed the shipping timeline hadn’t changed. Maybe they have a large supply this year. Nevertheless, we won’t know until numbers are released. People use lines for benchmarks on launch day when lines are wrapped around the corners and everything is looking great, so it would be one sided to complain about usining lines as benchmarks when they aren’t long. In both cases we don’t know what they supply on hand is like.
I walked right in to the Carlsbad CA store at 8:30 AM and got exactly what I wanted (black, 64GB, Verizon 4G). Nobody in line, nobody in front of me. Incredible!
Walked into 2 Best Buy stores and a Walmart at lunch today, and they are 100% sold out. So much for it being a slow day for Apple.
There are also preorders this year. A significant difference than the iPad 2. Many many people preordered to avoid the lines.
I pre ordered 2, and bought one in the store. There were about 25 of us at the launch.
this is the real reason. that and apple has been making a ton of the new iPad for a while now.
How much you want to bet FedEx/UPS would want to disagree with the people saying Apple didn’t sell many..
HEY SAMSUNG!
Envious much?
Samsung: Soooo screwed.
I went at 8:10A (Target) and got 32GB AT&T. Dropped by another Target at 3:00P and got last Wifi. They had 8 32GB AT&T models. Seems people want Verizon, maybe due to inclusion of hotspot?
Remember guys that:
1. Apple’s distribution network is getting larger all the time. More vendors sell them and Apple are not restricting initial sales to Apple Stores. You can pre-order or buy from a store.
2. Apple’s ability to increased inventory in the initial launch is much better than before.
Only Apple knows what is in the channel. My guess is 2-4 MM. This is probably why the pre-sales sold out so quickly.
This is a good thing. The demand is huge but is being met in different ways.
I got my 32 gig wifi at Walmart at 12:01 last night. They had five 16 gig and five 32 gig. I was the sixth person there. I was shocked there was not more people waiting when I got there.
The thing to keep in mind is that this version is available in far more retail outlets. For me, there were eight retail businesses within walking distance that carried iPads this morning.
Last year there were 4.
QUICK! DUMP APPLE STOCK!! THE LINES ARE SHORTER!!
Seriously though, this new iPad is an upgrade and not a total revamp. So you are not going to get everybody all excited to dish out about $600 as soon as it is released. The iPad 2 was a great device until yesterday. It didn’t suddenly become a bad one today.