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Apple Store Ipad

March 18, 2012 by · Comments Off on Apple Store Ipad 

Apple Store Ipad, People who couldn’t bear to wait weeks to get their hands on the new iPad lined up for hours – and in some cases overnight – outside Apple stores in Canada, Australia, USA, UK , Japan and around the world to buy the latest version of the technology giant’s popular tablet computer.

In Ottawa, music teacher Ueli Dorig, who planned to buy the iPad as a surprise gift for his wife, joined the queue of about 200 people at about 4: 30 a.m., but some customers started to line up as early as supper hour Thursday for the latest iPad, which costs $519 for a basic model.

“I’m tired,” said Dorig, “but I am relieved to see that I’m far enough in line that I am guaranteed to get one.”

In Calgary, customers also formed an early-morning queue outside the store’s locked entrance. When the doors finally opened, Nancy Handayani made the most of the wait.

She emerged at about 8: 30 a.m. Friday with a big smile on her face – and four new Apple iPads.

“One of them is for me and three of them are for a gift,” Handayani said. “I like Apple products. They’re really trendy and innovative.”

The new iPad – Apple has refrained from calling it iPad 3 – has faster chips, fourth- generation wireless, a sharper display and a better camera, making it harder for competitors such as Samsung’s Galaxy, which also lack Apple’s range of apps and content, to catch up.

Customers said they waited in line because they were unwilling to wait the three weeks it could otherwise take to get one.

“I just got hyped into it, I guess,” said David Tarasenko, a 34-year-old construction manager who was the first to pick one up in Sydney, Australia.

Even in a tough economic climate in some parts of the world, many buyers, such as 27-year-old Steve Henry in Paris, said they would scrimp elsewhere if necessary.

“I save money on my other purchases for hightech shopping,” said Henry, a systems engineer at a railway company who was hoping to buy his first iPad mainly to watch films and read during his more than two hours of travel per day.

Tablet sales are expected to increase to 326 million by 2015 with Apple largely dominating the market, according to research firm Gartner. By then, tablets could rival sales of desktop computers, which Gartner expects to total 368 million units this year.

The enduring popularity of Apple products, and stock, have provided CEO Tim Cook, who took over after the death of Steve Jobs last year, with a good start. The stock has jumped 45 per cent this year to a market value of about $550 billion.

Apple’s top manufacturer is Foxconn Technology Group, whose factories in China are under scrutiny over labour practices. Small groups of labour activists tried to draw attention to the issue at stores in New York and San Francisco.

Charlotte Hill, a representative of change.org, called for better worker protection.

“We are hoping Apple’s workers and people higher up in the corporate chain will hear us,” Hill said in San Francisco, where about 200 to 300 people had lined up prior to the opening of the downtown store.

Amanda Bell, a law student and part of a group of protesters in New York, said: “There is a cognitive dissonance for most people between loving the product and hating the way it’s made.”

In the Chinese city of Shenzhen, people keen to get their hands on the new iPad waited for them to be smuggled across the border from Hong Kong.

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