For New Yorkers, a 'crazy' wait for new iPhone

Those wanting to get their hands on the first of the new iPhones began lining up at the Apple store in SoHo hours before the 7 a.m. opening, with the line snaking from the entrance around four square blocks back to the entrance.

Security guards kept the line in order while employees in blue T-shirts directed traffic and passed out bottles of cold Smart Water to refresh those waiting in humid heat that was expected to reach about 90 degrees by afternoon. Customers coming to the front door were frankly told the wait for those who had pre-ordered the iPhone 4 would be five hours.

Those looking to purchase one of what an employee said was a "fair quantity" of phones available to walk-in customers were already being turned away by 9 a.m. Those who pre-reserved a phone online had to pick up their phones by the time the store closed or the phone would go back in to the general stock, another employee told customers, advising them to show up at least two hours before closing time to make sure they had an opportunity to get in the store and buy their phone.

David Wachsmuth, 28, a New York University graduate student who had planned to stop by on the way to his office in the psychology building, was preparing to spend his day doing work while on line. Miko Bartland, 41, a graphic designer from Williamsburg, planned to just work from his phone.

"I don't like online shopping," he said when asked why he wasn't just willing to have the phone delivered. "I like in-the-hand stuff. I am a tactile person," though he admitted the five-hour wait was a little daunting and he might just give up.

NYU computer science professor Ben Goldberg, who lives a block away, bought his son, Zack, a phone as a graduation present, but wasn't about to wait on line to get it the same day. Zack pulled morning duty arriving at 6:20 a.m. and was relieved by his father at about 9:30 so he could get ready for graduation from Stuyvesant High School at 11 a.m. Goldberg was allowed into the store at 10 a.m.

"Living in the neighborhood, I have seen the lines for the last three generations," Ben Goldberg said. "When the original iPhone came out it was long. This is in the same ballpark. I wasn't going to wait. It's his phone."

Robert Ho, 49, of Sunset Park, arrived at a leisurely 9 a.m. so he could buy his son, Robert, 14, a phone for a honor roll finish to the school year at Bishop Ford Central Catholic High School in Windsor Terrace.

"We thought about camping out, but I didn't think it was going to be this bad," Ho said. He figured he would "wait an hour in the worst case. This is crazy."

Asked why he just didn't pre-order the phone which would arrive in the next two weeks, Ho said his son "couldn't wait. I could have waited."

"He's been doing pretty good in school," Ho said. "School finished and he made first honors."