iPhone sellers open doors, greeted by cheers

By Scott Hillis and Franklin Paul

SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hundreds of gadget fans, or their paid stand-ins, lined up on Friday to be the first buyers of Apple Inc.'s iPhone, a music and video playing phone expected to reshape the mobile industry.

Apple stores became magnets for technology enthusiasts who waited for the phones to go on sale at 6 p.m. local time in each U.S. time zone.

More than 600 people were lined up at two Apple stores in New York, and the crowd cheered at one of them as the doors opened. Smaller groups of several dozen customers waited outside AT&T stores. AT&T Inc. is the phone's exclusive wireless carrier for the next two years.

About 200 people stood outside a San Francisco outlet for a device that has whipped technology lovers into a frenzy usually associated with the launch of a new video game console.

"The phones out there are just garbage. I've gone through several phones, even the expensive ones. This is different," said Albert Livingstone, 62, in Chicago. "It's the newest toy. I'm 62 -- I don't have much time left to buy toys."

The iPhone melds a phone, Web browser and media player. Technology gurus praised it as a "breakthrough" device, but questioned whether users would have a hard time with its smooth touch-screen, instead of a keyboard, and pokey Internet link.

The svelte gadget is a gamble by Apple co-founder and Chief Executive Steve Jobs to build upon the company's best-selling iPod music player and expand the market for its software and media services.

Apple aims to sell 10 million iPhones in 2008, which would amount to a 1 percent share of the global market. It has not given a goal for the device's launch, but some analysts said it could sell up to 400,000 units in the first few days.