Lines were formed outside Apple Inc stores in Asia early on Friday as Iphone fans stood eager to buy the latest release, Iphone X.
In Australia, Around 400 people stood outside Apple’s retail store in central Sydney to get the $1,218 phone for the 10th-anniversary model, made of glass-and-stainless-steel. Just 30 people turned up for the September release of the iPhone 8, an incremental update of the iPhone 7, Reuters reported.
According to Apple, the handset will be available Friday in more than 50 markets, including China, the US, the UK, Singapore, Australia, India and Japan.
The iPhone X comes a decade after the original iPhone, the product that powered Apple’s rise to become the world’s biggest technology company with a market capitalization of $868 billion.
Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri expressed Apple's satisfaction with how manufacturing of the iPhone X was advancing.
“Production is growing every week, and that’s very, very important during a ramp period,” he said.
In Apple’s Omotesando store in Tokyo, some 550 people were waiting in a line stretching to around 600 meters.
“I‘m going home, and after having a rest, I’d like to have fun (with the phone),” said first-in-line Yamaura, a 21-year-old college student who spent six days in the queue.
The major change to the iPhone X from previous models is the removal of the physical home button and fingerprint sensor which was used for unlocking before. Instead, the iPhone X would now be unlocked with a Face ID system.
“I thought not having a home button would be an adjustment, but the new gestures are easy to learn and very natural,” IT worker Greg Johnson told Reuters after testing his new phone in Sydney.
