43
JAMMED PHONE LINES
Photo
Tim Lockso, left, of Hubbard and Doug McClintock of Boardman were among a group of people lined up outside the AT&T store in Boardman Friday to purchase iPhones. Some waited overnight in parking lot.
Photo
Isaac Arroyo of Springfield Twp shows off the new iphone he purchased Friday morning at the ATT store in Boardman. Customers waited in line, some overnight, outside the store to purchase the phones.
iPhone 3G
Video
By RICHARD L. BOCCIA
Customers lined up at several Mahoning Valley stores to buy an iPhone and a bit of the mania.
Data speed of Apple’s new iPhone draws crowds
1Customers lined up outside Mahoning Valley AT T stores Friday, ready to purchase not only the device, but a bit of iPhone mania.
Later in the day, the excitement had turned to frustration for some when the last step of iPhone activation failed, affecting some new customers and those who had upgraded their old iPhones.
Before the problem started, more than 30 people had gathered outside the AT T store at 650 Boardman-Canfield Road in Boardman. The store opened at 8 a.m. — an hour earlier than usual. A similar line formed at a Niles store, and 10 people were in line in East Liverpool.
Andrew McNicol of East Liverpool was first in line in Boardman at 7 p.m. Thursday, where he and two friends camped out in the parking lot after driving for more than 30 miles.
“We called it an adventure,” said McNicol. The 17-year-old saved money to upgrade from his original iPhone. “I wasn’t going to get it if it was $500 again. I probably wouldn’t have been allowed,” he said, referring to his father, who drove to Boardman in the morning to sign the contract with his son who is under age 18.
McNicol and his friends’ activation took place early and without incident.
“I wouldn’t want to be back there,” McNicol said, looking at the end of the line.
That’s where YSU seniors Bill Coughlin and Ren e Bradbeer waited. They arrived at 7:50 a.m. because they didn’t expect the crowd. Coughlin’s activation was delayed but went through later that morning.
Coughlin, who paid $599 for his first iPhone, said he likes the new pricing. The iPhone now costs $199 upfront and AT&T charges about $10 more per month than before. Coughlin might miss text messaging, which now costs extra, and he wonders about the actual speed increase of the phone’s Internet connection.
“Then again,” he said, “I have to have everything new.”
Bradbeer said she’d wait to see if “twice as fast” is true for Coughlin’s new iPhone before upgrading hers. At home in Boardman later that day, Coughlin said his coverage under the new network, which allows the new device to get on the Internet faster, was good.
A map from AT&T shows that Cortland, Salem, East Palestine and Hermitage, Pa., are not covered by the faster network, called 3G, though most areas in the Valley are inside the provider’s older network.
Bob Beasley, AT&T Inc. spokesman, said the new network will expand outward from Youngstown and Warren eventually.
In the middle of the line stood Derrick Jackson, who was also in the middle of a decision between the 8- and 16-gigabyte models.
The 32-year-old has a private podiatry practice in Youngstown, and he feels some peer pressure to keep up with medical colleagues and friends in technology. He’s interested in medical applications on the iPhone, which customers buy or get for free from an online software store run by Apple. The store opened Friday for new and old iPhones.
Though Jackson was eligible for a phone upgrade in December, he waited for the new iPhone.
“I’m excited that I’m finally upgrading,” Jackson said. “I don’t really know what to expect.”
Having switched to his first Mac computer two weeks ago, Jackson is new to the Apple admiration that others in line have had for years. McNicol’s laptop waited in the car so he could load contacts onto the phone as soon as he left the store. Was it a Mac?
“Only Mac products,” McNicol said.
Coughlin also has a Mac. “I’ve been waiting for Apple to come out with a phone forever. I thought it would be the best phone ever, and it was,” he said.
Laura Merritt, spokeswoman for Verizon Wireless, said that the day was business as usual. She’s not aware of a line ever forming at a Verizon store for a new device, which she attributes to her company’s more frequent rollout of new devices rather than one big one per year.
She mentioned two comparably fast phones from LG Electronics, the Voyager and the Dare, although Verizon does not offer the faster network such phones would run on in Youngstown.
“We’re still working our way around the state,” she said.
And the iPhone? Merritt said competition is good for wireless customers, who she said value network reliability the most.
Sprint spokeswoman Kathleen Dunleavy said she saw some lines for her provider’s new phone from Samsung, the Instinct. She said the Instinct is superior to the iPhone in some ways, like the GPS.
“Sprint navigation will provide driving directions comparable to a built-in navigation system, with turn-by-turn directions,” she said.
Sprint’s faster network covers the Valley, but not the area of Pennsylvania around Sharon.