Hey, it's Day 2 of iPad 3 being on sale, and people are still eager to get the $499+ product! We passed by the Upper West Side Apple Store around 8:15 a.m. today, where there were more than two dozen people waiting.
The product is smash around the world: A British mantold the AP that he and his girlfriend lined up for the iPad in 2010, "People always stop to talk to us. I am exhausted though, I have only had about 45 minutes of sleep."
And in Hong Kong, where tourists from mainland China typically try to swoop in to buy Apple gadgets without sales tax, an online lottery was held to give shoppers an orderly experience. The iPad 3's release date in China hasn't been announced, and EuroNews reports, "Just across the border from Hong Kong in the Chinese city of Shenzhen, people keen to get their hands on the new iPad had to wait for the tablet to be smuggled into mainland China." One Shenzhen store owner said, "We don’t have iPad 3s yet, but some will arrive later in the day when the students deliver them to us. We’ll have more supplies over this weekend. Customs has become stricter, but if you take one at a time across the border, that’s still pretty safe. At most they’ll ask you to take it out of the box to prove that it’s for self use."
So if you see Chinese immigrants lining up outside Apple Stores, they may be part of the infamous underground import-export business.
