Atlanta’s Apple aficionados joined their counterparts worldwide early Friday in the now-familiar ritual of lining up en masse to get their hands on the latest, greatest version of the iPhone.
Ross Gall was number three in the long line waiting to buy an iPhone 5 at the Apple store at Lenox Square mall.
The Marietta man said he got to the mall at 11 p.m. Thursday and joined others in a line along the sidewalk across the street from the mall because mall security wouldn’t allow overnight camping.
“If you’re on mall property, they kick you off and won’t let you do this,” Gall said.
Gall said he had already ordered the new phones online for him and his wife, but the expected delivery date was right in the middle of their vacation.
“[If] They come to my house while I’m on vacation, I can’t take receipt of them and they get sent back to Apple,” he said. “So it was simpler for me to come in and see if I could get two here, then cancel my online orders.”
Gall listed faster operating speeds, a bigger screen and more battery life as his main reasons for upgrading to the new iPhone 5.
Friday morning’s iPhone lines weren’t limited to Apple stores.
A spokeswoman for Verizon Wireles, told the AJC in an e-mail that there were lines at each of the company’s metro Atlanta stores, with many of the lines forming in the wee hours of the morning.
Jason McGraw of Lilburn got in line outside the AT&T store across from Lenox at 3 a.m. Friday.
“I heard people were lining up starting Monday in New York, so I figured it would be pretty crazy here as well,” McGraw told the AJC. “It wasn’t as bad as I was expecting.”
McGraw said he was waiting to purchase his fifth iPhone.
“I’ve broken a few,” he admitted, but added, “aside from my current iPhone being broken, I’ve been excited about the iPhone 5 since the iPhone 4S came out.”
Joining McGraw in the line outside the AT&T store was Shamar Iverson of Atlanta, who said he queued up at 4:15 a.m. “just to make sure that if there was an insane line, that I would at least have a good chance of getting the phone.”
“Everybody is focusing on the Apple store, so going to a carrier store is sometimes a little bit easier,” McGraw said.
He said that even though he chose to wait in the much shorter line outside the AT&T store, he understood the allure of spending time in the longer line at the Apple store.
“It’s kind of a big rah-rah thing, especially for people who are fans of Apple,” McGraw said. “Kind of get caught up in the hype, that’s part of it.”
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