iPhone 3G fans camp outside store for morning sale

Photo by ADMorales: Three men wait early Friday-morning on beach chairs in front of the AT&T store on Rt. 37 East in Toms River, New Jersey. They said they would not sleep, especially with traffic almost 15 feet away from them.

By Alberto D. Morales

albertodmorales AT gmail dot com

Toms River, New Jersey – Line campers were outside one of the local AT&T stores early-Friday awaiting the 8 a.m. opening and sale of the new iPhone 3G.

Three local Ocean County men were in their beach chairs along the wall of the store claiming they would not go to sleep until they had the iPhones in their hands.

Rob, 27, of Barneget, said he was definitely getting the 16 GB model because it “made more sense in price,” and was a better bargain. He was third in line and felt happy about it.

“I got out of work at 9 p.m. and was waiting at the Ihop resturaunt across the street to make sure I wasn’t the only guy on line,” Rob said.

He said he waited until around 10:30 p.m., Thursday, until he noticed two other men waiting on line and joined them soon after.

Glenn, 22, of Toms River said this will be his first iPhone purchase and would have gotten last year’s model but heard of third generation rumors and decided to wait a year. He said he was one of the many who watched a live stream of Steve Jobs’ WWDC Keynote announcing the newest model to hit AT&T stores exclusively in the United States.

And, along with Rob, Glenn is no stranger to lines.

“I’ve waited on lines for Black Fridays and the Xboxes before,” Glenn said.

But the number one man on line was Warren Dickerson, 35, of Toms River with coffee in hand, seeming anxious, saying he too was going for the $299 model that holds 16 GB of data and comes in either black or white colors. (The 8 GB model at $199 only comes in black.) He was on line since 10 p.m., Thursday, he said.

Dickerson said that as a hardware consultant, he deals with 95 percent of PC-users and was a hardcore PC-user himself until a year ago. He said he was so frustrated with Dell customer service, that he is now a loyal Apple customer claiming to own an iMac, MacBook Pro, iShuffle, and last year’s iPhone model.

“It’s easier for me to have because I can have one this device to use for personal use as well as a PDA for business,” he said.

Fears of the phone being out of stock was something they all had in mind, saying it was the reason they came nearly 8 hours early.

“There’s a risk involved when you wait (too long),” Rob said. “I don’t want to find out tomorrow the hard way.”