New Yorkers might have lined up for days leading up to the iPhone 6’s launch, but the gadget’s debut in China — which happened Friday morning — doesn’t sound like it was met with the same level of enthusiasm.
A mere 100 customers lined up outside the Apple (AAPL) Store in an upscale Beijing shopping district to pick up their pre-ordered new iPhones, the Wall Street Journal reports. The paper also described the event as “decidedly low-key.” Womp womp.
Check out these sad details from the WSJ‘s coverage of the launch:
While some past sales had attracted thousands of buyers who queued overnight, only a handful of customers had showed up an hour before the store opened, outnumbered by the two-dozen private-security guards hired for the occasion.
Oh man, the thought of all those unnecessary guards gives us serious second-hand embarrassment.
Different from the mosh pit-esque jostling you’d expect from a typical tech launch, the scene outside this Beijing Apple store sounded unsettlingly peaceful and orderly:
The line grew steadily as the clock ticked toward opening hour, composed entirely of pre-order customers who arrived to pick up their new phones during their assigned time slots. Others who didn’t place pre-orders stood idly by, awaiting their turn to join the line.
The WSJ partially attributes the anticlimactic launch to the fact that the iPhone 6 went on sale elsewhere in China at midnight, meaning many got their hands on the new device before stores opened at 8 a.m.
New Yorkers seemed to display considerably more excitement — some of it borderline insane — about the iPhone 6’s launch.
On Craigslist, for instance, a black market emerged for iPhone 6 line sitters, some of whom charged up to $2,500 for their services. Other Craigslist users tried to capitalize on the iPhone 6 mania by creepily offering up their devices in exchange for sex. Gross.
One foreseeable plus-side to Beijing’s anticlimactic iPhone 6 launch? Less hype probably meant less anxious customers, and therefore a smaller chance of someone immediately dropping their brand new phone on the sidewalk.