The leading launch day for new iPhones is regularly the most exciting day of the year for Apple fans. Unsurprisingly, today’s release of the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus was greeted with huge crowds of excited people at various Apple retail stores around the world.
12 territories – including the US, Canada, the UK and, for the first time, China – were in the first wave of countries to get the new phones. Different time zones meant that the Australian city of Sydney saw especially early availability, as Apple CEO Tim Cook acknowledged on Twitter.
Thank you Vitor in Sydney! One of the very first customers in the world to buy an iPhone 6s. pic.twitter.com/G0zdxNkuow
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) September 25, 2015
Apple Store openings occurred in a globally westerly direction. In the UK, 29-year-old Sam Shaikh was the first to pick up one of the new iPhones at the store in London’s Covent Garden – as had remarkably also been the case at last year’s iPhone 6 retail launch. Later, as reported by AppleInsider, at the front of the queue at the Fifth Avenue store in New York City was Justina Siciunaite, filmed showing the crowd her new rose gold iPhone in the following video.
The inclusion of China as a launch country this year could significantly help Apple in yet again setting a record for the highest number of new iPhones sold over an initial launch weekend.