Geek chic: standing in line is all part of iPad launch day

They started gathering outside Lenox Square Mall in the pre-dawn hours -- and then were funneled through the third floor hallway around 8:30 a.m. to make two lines that met in the center in front of the Apple store.

At 9 a.m., Apple’s doors opened. The hundreds of people who stood in line – some as many as four hours – could finally get their iPad.

But they could have just waited for UPS to deliver it. So, what’s the deal?

“He wanted to stand in line,” Steve DeWeerth said, looking over at his son, Jesse. “This is our third product launch. There’s just something exciting about being here.”

DeWeerth had even bought an iPad online to have it shipped to their Decatur home but said his son made him scrap those plans so they could buy them at the store instead.

“It’s all he’s been talking about,” DeWeerth said about the Decatur High School Student, who said he was too excited to talk.

People mark time by it -- the day Apple released the iPhone ... and then the second-generation iPhone. One person approached a reporter and innocently asked, "Is this your first launch?"

The sleepy-eyed, coffee-clutching Apple lovers looked more awake as the 9 a.m. hour approached. Apple employees handed out bottled water, and Chick fil-A and other vendors walked down both lines selling food.

"It's an obsession. It's hard to explain, it's just something you have to have," said Kerri Banham, who also owns an iPhone and an iMac.

And they had to get it – today.

"I talked myself out of getting one and then I talked myself back in to getting one," said Chris Pairan, first in the "walk-up" line awaiting the store's opening.

Pairan, a student at the Art Institute of Atlanta is using school as his justification for getting one. But, eventually he admitted that it’s more that he needed to have one in time for Monday’s classes – to show it off.

At 9 a.m., blue-shirted Apple employees burst through two side doors and filed down two long lines of giddy, soon-to-be-iPad owners, giving them "hi-fives." The applause and cheers got louder as the store's front glass doors opened, and employees started ushering customers in little by little.

Snehal Vashi took his 10-year-old daughter, Riya, to check out the crowd at the Apple Store even though he ordered his iPad online. With Starbucks drinks in hand, the pair stood in amazement as customers headed into the store.

"I wanted her to see it," Vashi said. "It's amazing -- to make a product like that that's making people stand in line to get."

Betty Gibbs could barely stop to chat as she met her family, who woke up at 3:30 a.m. to make sure they got to the mall on time.

"My heart was beating faster and faster," Gibbs said, describing what it was like to finally have the iPad box in her hands. "The salesperson was talking, but I didn't hear one word that he was saying."

Meanwhile Sheridan Wilson, who was in the van with Gibbs as they traveled from Jonesboro to Buckhead, was still barely awake.

"3:38, 3:38. I got up at 3:38," a groggy Wilson said.  Wilson said he dozed in the van, opening his eyes every couple of minutes to see if Gibbs -- who first queued up outside Lenox -- had made her way inside the mall.

But other than the 900 million Tweets, blogs and other pre-iPad launch day media coverage, Apple hasn’t bit on any questions that involve how many of the flashy new devices have been shipped to stores – or how many have been reserved or pre-purchased.

Best Buy isn’t saying, either, only that stores throughout the metro area are using a first-come-first-serve ticketing system. So, if you’re reading this, and you didn’t reserve your iPad through a local Apple hub, you may be out of luck for the moment.

Analysts forecast that Apple will sell around one million iPads by the end of the June quarter and around 5 million by the end of the year, The New York Times says. Though techies were quick to point out some of the iPad’s quirks – including the name – the device is a big, flashy reader that is likely to be a hit with those wanting to play games, watch videos and do other high-end media activities.