Apple’s iPhone 4 Release Day in Durham

A very, very long, hot wait.

Over a 15 to seven-hour period, Apple customers camped in front of the red brick and concrete buildings of Main Street at The Streets at Southpoint.  No average campers here.  Most had their laptops and dozens, who stayed overnight, had portable, reclining, lounge chairs and blow-up sleeping mats — the kind normally inserted into a sleeping bag.  Apparently, this was not their first retail camp out.

Wannabe iPhone 4 owners were separated into two lines: those with reservations and those without, but still hoping to make a purchase.

Britney from Durham claimed her space in the “purchases” line a full 10 hours before opening time. “It’s just time to get a new a phone,” she says looking down at her pink clad, two-year-old 3G version. “My mom is getting mine, and I’m getting the new one.”

At 7 a.m., when the doors opened,  Apple ambassadors navigated a sea of huddled hopefuls that wrapped around two sides of the Apple Store and extended to Restoration Hardware.  A collective excitement followed the ambassadors each time they ventured through crowd like good hosts distributing chilled bottles of water, snacks, oversized shade umbrellas and sought-after white inventory tickets.

Numerous inventory tickets were distributed to the line.  No ticket.  No iPhone.  And still … there was no guarantee that the iPhones would last until the end of both lines.

To the unitiated, all this hype may seem overrated. I mean, after all, it is … just a phone, right? Well, yes and no.  According, to Apple’s website, iPhone4 users will experience: “Phone calls like you’ve never seen before.”