Toronto, July 31 (IANS) Apple invaded BlackBerry territory Friday with the launch of its iPhone 4 across Canada. Frenzied Canadians lined up in front of Apple stores and other authorized retailers from Toronto to Halifax to Vancouver almost 24 hours before the delivery of the smartphone started in Canada.
‘It feels great in my hands. I am so happy about it,” beamed young Danny as he emerged out of the Apple store at the famous Eaton Centre here.
‘It feels as if it was mean for my hands,” shouted the teenager, raising the smart phone as a huge roar went up.
Thirteen year-old Cameron Burgess, who had waited all night outside the store, could not contain his joy when he was handed his iPhone 4.
‘It is way faster than my previous handset… way, way faster. You love it, you don’t know why,” shouted the boy as he set about tweaking his new gizmo.
‘For me, it is a new toy for me. Some of the new features are cool…so it is a great new toy,” said another first buyer of the smart phone.
One person could be seen walking out with eight iPhones bought for $6,000.
So brisk was the sale that Canadian stores went out of stock very quick, reminding the frenzy that surrounded the launch of the previous version of the iPhone in Canada.
A young woman, who ran from one outlet to another to buy the smart phone, was almost distraught when she was told by the main Apple store that the stock was sold.
‘I think my iPhone quest is over for now…I admit defeat,” she said.
The Canadian launch comes with two models – 16 GB model for $659 and 32 GB model for $779 – with no contracts. Since customers in the US have complained about dropped calls if the smart phone is held in certain positions, Apple is providing free rubber cases to new buyers to help improve signal reception.
The iPhone 4 euphoria in their backward must not have gone unnoticed at BlackBerry headquarters at Waterloo near here.
To meet the Apple onslaught, BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) is holding a press conference in New York Tuesday to unveil its newest BlackBerry 9800 with a slider keyboard and touch-screen interface.
Aimed solely at consumers and youngsters, the new BlackBerry will be RIM’s first retaliatory shot at Apple whose iPhone 4 has eaten into its supremacy in the North American market.
Apart from Canada, iPhone 4 made its debut also in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. The smart phone was launched in the US in June.
(Gurmukh Singh can be contacted at gurmukh.s@ians.in)
