The launch of Apple Inc’s iPad mini attracted smaller crowds from Sydney to New York on Friday than have been typical for previous Apple product debuts, events marked by people lining up for hours or even days.
A proliferation of comparable rival devices may have sapped some interest for the device, which is priced above rival gadgets from Google Inc and Amazon.com Inc.
A few hundred people were in line at Apple’s Fifth Avenue flagship store in New York at about 8 a.m., days after the city was battered by Hurricane Sandy, one of the biggest storms to ever hit the United States.
Lisa Sieber, 59, from Germany rode a bike to the Apple store on Friday as she said she’s been going ‘stir crazy’ from lack of power and water at her 81-year-old mother’s home in Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
“I didn’t think I needed an iPad but once you get your first Mac, you slide into the iPhone and the next one and it makes it easy to get more Apple products,” she said, adding that “there’s not much to do without power and lights.”
While many people have been happy to camp overnight at the New York store for past launches, some were angry on Friday that Apple changed the store’s opening time to 10 a.m. for this launch from 8 a.m. previously.
