LYNNWOOD – When Tom MacNeil picked up the small bag containing his newly acquired iPhone on Friday evening, he reacted with one word.
“Finally,” he said.
He and his nephew, Malcolm MacNeil, woke up at 4 a.m. Friday and drove from La Conner to the Alderwood mall. There, the uncle left his nephew at 6:20 a.m. He was the first to line up outside the front doors of the mall’s Apple store.
By a few minutes before the 6 p.m. release of Apple’s new it-does-everything wireless phone, there were about 150 people lined up behind Malcolm, Tom and Robin MacNeil.
All of them were eager to get their hands on the iPhone, which inspired lines at stores nationwide. At the Apple store in Seattle’s University Village, a couple hundred waited in line.
With a 3.5-inch touch-screen display, which Apple CEO Steve Jobs has touted as “revolutionary,” the iPhone has been the focus of endless anticipatory hype since its unveiling in January. Apple hopes to sell 10 million of the phones worldwide by 2008.
Garrett Sundby and Matt Klatt of Edmonds didn’t quite understand the fervor, yet they had waited in line right behind the MacNeils since 6:30 a.m. Friday. A neighbor offered to pay them $100 each to wait in line and buy the phones. With school out for the summer, it sounded like a good deal.
“I just want the money,” said Sundby, 16. “Get new accessories for my guitar and stuff.”
To fight off boredom, 14-year-old Klatt said he played cards and read.
“He read,” Sundby interjected. “I sat here.”
There actually were two young men who drove down from Vancouver, B.C., on Thursday night and slept in their cars. But they didn’t wake up and get in line until a bit after 6:30 a.m., so they were a few spots away from the front.
Employees, who began preparing for the iPhone’s big day at 2 a.m., bought and delivered Starbucks coffee drinks and bottled water to those in line. As the line grew throughout the day in front of the Alderwood store, people brought chairs, surfed the Web on their laptops and just sat.
Dave Griffin, one of two Pierce County Security guards hired to police the line, understood the excitement. He was a beta tester for the iPhone months ago, and he said it’s worth the $600 price tag attached to the 8-gigabyte model.
Finally, at 6 p.m., the big iPhone-shaped displays in the windows counted down the final seconds before the store reopened for the evening. Employees loudly applauded as the first devoted shoppers came in.
While the line snaked up to the cash registers, others came into the store just to try it out at the store’s demonstration tables.
“I really like it. I wish I had the money for one,” said Jeremy Sjodin, 20, of Marysville. After he pays for his college classes, he’d try to get one, he added.
“Gotta have it,” Brian Nerney said with a Texas-sized enthusiasm as Debra Pope watched him play with the iPhone’s touch-screen. The couple from the Lone Star state took the ferry from their Kingston summer home to check out the iPhone. They planned to buy one today, when the lines will be shorter.
“It’s really easy to use, very intuitive,” Nerney said. Pope, who said the iPhone looked cooler than her still-impressive Nokia handheld, said they’d probably fight a little over who got to use it. But not much.
“He gets the new toys,” she said. “I get the hand-me-downs.”
The MacNeils, who bought their first Apple personal computer 23 years ago and have been fans since, said the only thing they didn’t love about the new phone was the $600 price.
“It’s staggering,” Tom MacNeil said. “But the technology is so incredible.”
Reporter Eric Fetters: 425-339-3453 or fetters@heraldnet.com.
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