Apple iPhone launch draws gadget geeks, hired help

By Robert MacMillan and Regan E. Doherty

NEW YORK/CHICAGO (Reuters) - Albert Livingstone's wife thinks he is crazy for lining up overnight in Chicago to be among the first on Friday to buy Apple's much-hyped iPhone.

"It's the newest toy. I'm 62 -- I don't have much time left to buy toys," said Livingstone, who stood in line with his friend Mark Stevenson, 50. They rented a room across the street and took turns to sleep.

The pair were among hundreds of people who lined up -- some for up to five days -- outside Apple stores and outlets of AT&T, the exclusive iPhone carrier for the next two years, for the launch at 6 p.m. local time in each U.S. time zone.

The iPhone melds a phone, Web browser and media player. It has received rave reviews from U.S. technology gurus, who have praised the gadget as a "breakthrough."

But not everyone could understand the excitement.

"It's just a phone!" a San Francisco construction worker, driving by the Apple store in his pick-up truck, yelled at the waiting crowd.

Yet on a mild summer's day in Chicago, 50-year-old business consultant James Budd joined the line at dawn to not only buy an iPhone for himself, but also for his 95-year-old grandmother because he hoped it would be "simple enough" for her to use.

Even John Street, mayor of Philadelphia, has been waiting in line outside an AT&T Inc. store since Friday morning, his spokesman Joe Grace said.