The iPhone 6S and 6S Plus hit stores around the world on Friday, launching what is expected to be a record weekend of sales as customers scrambled to buy Apple Inc’s marquee product in pink for the first time.
Eager buyers — joined by at least one robot — flocked to Apple stores from Sydney to New York and San Francisco, itching to get their hands on new models boasting an improved camera and a screen feature Apple calls “3D Touch,” which performs different functions depending on how hard a user presses.
For all the sophisticated technology packed into the new iPhones, customers interviewed by reporters were most excited by a more low-tech feature: the “rose gold” finish, a new shade that Apple introduced with the current phone.
Photo: Reuters
The novel hue — essentially sparkling pink — accounted for more than one-third of early in-store sales, according to FBR Capital Markets analyst Daniel Ives, citing conversations with buyers.
Another of the hundreds gathered outside the store in downtown San Francisco was pink-haired software developer Jo Engo, 37, who has lobbied Apple leaders past and present for a phone in his favorite color.
“I have e-mailed not only Steve Jobs, but Tim Cook,” Engo said outside the store, sporting an Apple Watch with a pink band and an iPhone 6 in a pink case. “I’m so excited they’re finally doing it.”
Despite the crowds, the scene was less frenetic than usual at the San Francisco store, perhaps because more people now order phones online, and the release of a new device has become routine.
One store at least was buzzing, as Apple chief executive Tim Cook made a surprise visit to company’s store in Georgetown, Washington, to raucous cheers from employees and shoppers.
Analysts expect between 12 million and 13 million phones to fly off the shelves in the first weekend, up from more than 10 million last year, when the launch of the hugely successful iPhone 6 was delayed in China, the world’s biggest smartphone market.
Among the first to pick up the new iPhone 6S in a cold, rainy Sydney was a robot named Lucy, operated remotely by marketing executive Lucy Kelly.
“I obviously have my work and other things to attend to and can’t spend two days lining up so my boss at work suggested I take one of the robots down and use it to stand in my place,” she said, via an iPad mounted on top of the wheeled robot.
Apple has sold more than 700 million iPhones since the first model of the device upended the smartphone market in 2007.
Still, Apple has only about 16 percent of the global smartphone market, compared with 81 percent for devices running Google Inc’s Android system, according to tech research firm IDC’s projections for this year.
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