New iPhone goes on sale with less drama
NEW YORK -- The new iPhone went on sale in the U.S. Friday morning, greeted by much smaller lines and less hoopla than previous models.
The phone also went on sale in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and the U.K. Other countries will get it throughout the summer.
A few hundred people were in line just before the 7 a.m. (1100 GMT) opening of Apple Inc.'s flagship store on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, a fraction of the people who lined up around the block for last year's launch.
That launch turned into a debacle as Apple's servers failed to cope with the load of new customers trying to activate their phones. People who already had iPhones were trying to install a software update on the same day, adding to the pressure.
This year, Apple and AT&T Inc., the phone's U.S. carrier, defused the drama by taking pre-orders for the new phone online. That means fewer prospective buyers had a reason to stand in line, and it sped up the activation process.
Apple also released its software update for previous customers two days early. There were only scattered reports of problems with that upgrade.
The new model is called the 3G S. AT&T said it had taken pre-orders for "hundreds of thousands" of the phones. Apple sold one million units of the older model, the 3G, in the first three days last year.
For new customers signing a two-year contract with AT&T, the 3G S costs $199 or $299 depending on the memory capacity. Compared to the 3G, it has a faster processor and an upgraded camera.
Owners of the previous model, the iPhone 3G, will have to pay more than that. Most of them are not eligible for the new-customer pricing because AT&T subsidizes the cost of the phone and requires customers to "pay off" the subsidy through their monthly service fees before it will subsidize a new phone.
In line at the Fifth Avenue store, Brandon Dennie, 27, was not put off by the prospect of having to pay the unsubsidized price of $599 for the new phone. He's had a 3G for only six months, so he didn't qualify for the lowest price.
