iPhone X launch: Here is how the critical product launch for Apple pulled crowds in Mumbai

Smartphone giant Apple released its latest flagship, the Apple iPhone X to celebrate the 10 year anniversary for the launch of the original iPhone.

The iPhone X is likely to be the most important launch for the company in recent history because this marks the future of iPhones.

Updated design

The reason for this is because the iPhone 10 brings a brand new bezel-less design to iPhone after a kind of standstill in the development of the design department for the smartphone. The design has remained somewhat similar since the iPhone launch of iPhone 6 with minor changes in each successive iteration. The iPhone 10 updates this design language to the bezel-less smartphone design trend that gained traction in 2017 with the launch of Xiaomi Mi Mix in late 2016.

The company also brings the new authentication technology in the form of Face ID ditching the Touch ID fingerprint reader. To put the launch of iPhone X in perspective, it is likely that potential buyers have decided to wait for the launch of iPhone X instead of buying the iPhone 8 or iPhone 8 Plus, which were announced alongside the former. According to a report by IANS, stocks were limited. This was expected, since production bottlenecks have been  reported previously .

Response in India

iPhone X launched in the Indian market on Friday, which is the first time India is getting the latest iPhone device on the Global launch date. We headed out to the closest stores to check out the response from the Indian crowd at the nearest Apple reseller. To our delight, we noticed a number of people waiting outside the store before the designated time for the launch. The store was set to open it its gates for customers at 6 PM local time .

Customers were waiting from as early as 2 PM in the afternoon to ensure that they were the first ones to buy the latest iPhone in India. What makes it delightful is the fact that this is probably the first time that we have seen people waiting in queue to buy an ultra-premium smartphone, especially with such a high price tag.

The Apple reseller, Aptronix was ready and decorated for the launch of the iPhone X with security guards to ensure that everything was conducted without any hassle. There were two queues for customers, the first one for those with confirmed pickups and the second one with people who came to the store hoping that the stocks would last till their turn.

The store was sending people in batches of 10 to a second queue right outside the store where the employees where handing out coffee in Starbucks bags to the people waiting for their confirmed pickups. This queue was limited for people who pre-booked the iPhone X online.

All the store employees started counting down from 5:59:20 PM to count down to 40 seconds as all employees gathered around the store entrance to congratulate the first customer. Iqbal was the first customer to get the iPhone X from the store.

We talked to a few people who were waiting in the queue for the iPhone X and the general consensus was that it is worth the wait. Ashima Sethi booked her iPhone X on 1 November and joined the iPhone X queue for walk-in availability. Sethi added, “I’ve been waiting for about 40 minutes now and I’m not sure whether I’ll be receiving my unit but it’s worth the try.”

Sresht, waiting in the confirmed queue said, “I’d booked it on the first pre-booking session during which the unit sold out within minutes. So I do consider myself lucky that way.” According to people in the queue, the store sent out SMS confirmations to the people who can visit the store to pick up their devices.

We talked to the store representative and he confirmed that the store was handing out 256 GB variant of iPhone X (priced at a staggering Rs 1,02,000) to the customers with SMS confirmation. The lower storage variants were limited to the people who were waiting in the line for unconfirmed pickups. The store representative was not forthcoming on the number of units shipped to them in the first batch.

We even visited the nearest Croma Store to find out that the store had only one unit on display and the stock was scheduled to arrive starting 10th November 2017. However, as reported previously , it is likely that the number of units in Aptronix and Croma is small in comparison to the number of units sent at the launch of the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus.

Global Appeal

India is not the only country to see such a response to the launch of the latest iPhone. As reported previously , the launch events or similar and even more crowd gathering in line waiting for the launch across other Asian countries.

The new design of the iPhone along with interesting technologies like Face ID is likely to make the launch a critical point. People all across the world start camping outside the Apple stores days in advance to ensure that they can buy the device on the launch day. The launch day for the iPhone is an important event for all the Apple fans across the world.

Though most of the people who managed to buy the latest iPhone on the launch day end up putting it up for sale on e-commerce websites as detailed in a YouTube video by popular You-tuber Casey Neistat. Despite that, die-hard Apple fans consider that it’s worth it to camp out for the latest iPhone days in advance before the launch.