iPhone 4 Goes on Sale to Long Lines, Sellouts and Memories of a Rough Preorder Week

NEW YORK, June 24 - Apple's iPhone 4 went on sale Thursday in the United States, France, Germany, Britain and Japan, with customers lining up outside stores, some of them overnight, and some shops selling out within hours.

Stores in Tokyo and Miami ran out of phones early. Apple said demand was off the charts. In New York, Jasmine Cordova, 25, an administrative assistant, waited outside the Fifth Avenue store and said Apple should have stocked more.

Some people waited a long time. In Chicago, customers stayed in line through severe thunderstorms and tornado sirens, and the store handed out black umbrellas with the Apple logo. Jordan Richardson, who had been there since 7 a.m. Wednesday, sold his place for $500, paid another customer $200 to get back in line and netted $300.

In Aventura, Fla., Loren McHenry, 42, arrived at 9 p.m. Wednesday and was told no one could stay on mall property overnight. About 120 people were already camped in a nearby parking lot. McHenry called the situation "a mess." In London, Alex Lee, 27, flew in from Dubai to join a line of about 500 people on Regent Street.

The phone costs $199 or $299 with a two-year contract, depending on storage. Apple's pitch is a thinner body, a sharper screen, longer battery life and cameras on both sides for face-to-face video calls.

The launch comes after a rough week of ordering. Preorders opened June 15, and Apple and its carrier partners took more than 600,000 orders in a single day, the most Apple had seen. AT&T, the exclusive U.S. carrier, said it received ten times as many first-day orders as for the previous model. Computer systems buckled. Buyers saw error messages, and AT&T logged more than 13 million visits to its upgrade-eligibility page, three times its previous record. An apparent AT&T website glitch sent some customers into strangers' accounts. AT&T said the exposed information did not include Social Security numbers, credit card information or detailed call logs.

"Many customers were turned away or abandoned the process in frustration," Apple said in a statement. AT&T stopped taking orders the next morning. Apple's website now shows no delivery date before July 14.

Why it matters: A first-day count of 600,000 orders is the most Apple has ever seen for a phone, and the demand has outrun the computer systems of both Apple and AT&T. On launch day it is outrunning store stock in some cities too.

The next test is whether Apple and AT&T can get phones to preorder customers and fill shelves in time for walk-in buyers.