London queues for iPhone 4

Today, 24th June 2010, you could see long queues in front of Vodafone and O2 outlets throughout Central London (and I am sure, throughout the country, despite all World Cup fever). I decided to move across London and find out what people were speculating. Due to data protection act, I will not be revealing real names and therefore use pseudo names for people I interviewed.

Anna at Cannon Street O2 outlet said, "I've been here since 7 AM". She didnt had any breakfast and just rushed to pick her 4th Generation iPhone, for which she has been waiting for since the beginning of May this year. Steven, back in the same queue said he had walked for 20 minutes as there were some delays in the national rail trains between Lewisham and Cannon Street this morning, and he didn't wanted to miss a spot on the first day itself. Stepheny and Clara were clever enough to get their breakfast packed well in advance, to counter this situation.

Thereafter, I moved on to Apple's Regent Street outlet this morning and if I am allowed to say so, it looked like a "fish market". There were at least 300-350 people in the queue at 10 in the morning, and the numbers were growing by manifolds with each passing minute.

Luckily I came across an old colleague inside the store and I could lay my hands on the new iPhone to test it for myself and I will say, it was an amazing experience. I expected better speed though, on 3G network as I disabled its Wi-fi and tried to do a Google Maps search for couple of locations in and around London. It was rather sloppy and slow but this may also be due to lethargic Orange's network on iPhone 4, which is a mandate if you want to buy iPhone 4 over the counter from any of Apple's outlets. It was also surprising to see that you need to buy a £10 top-up with the phone when you buy it over the counter, but interestingly, unlike in The States, your new iPhone 4 is Sim-free and can be used over any network of your choice.

At £499 for 16 GB and £599 for 32 GB, it has great build quality and product conformance as is the case with all Apple's products I've used so far (Macbook Pro, iPod, iPod Touch, 3GS and the iPad).

After Cannon Street and Regent Street, I moved on to Vodafone's outlet at Lewisham Shopping complex which seemed to be a good place to find people in high density and therefore higher probabilities of getting some feedback. George spoke about how excited he was to buy the phone and download loads of new games in his handset, while Claudia was more concerned about getting those calls that she previously used to drop due to poor reception in her iPhone 3G. Steve (not Jobs) told me, how he has been saving for a long time to buy this phone and give it as a gift to his younger brother on his birthday.

All in all a pretty interesting day meeting a lot of interesting people from all walks of life, all going all out for getting upgraded to the next mass appeal product.

The question is, how many people are able to acquire this phone in their speculated time period, as the manufacturer's UK domain clearly reflects earliest delivery dates being around 14th July' 2010 for people who have already booked their handsets with them.

Source: My personal Central London tour across Apple, O2 and Vodafone outlets today