Finally, I had my phone!
Total time in line: 7 hours.
Verdict: I'm glad I did it once to get the experience. It was entertaining and fun to meet some of the launch "regulars," especially on the 10th anniversary of the iPhone. But I have no plans to ever do it again!
In the store, the actual purchasing of the iPhone was a breeze.
The Apple associate helping me out, Yev, simply scanned the reservation code I had been sent earlier and it was a done deal.
And then, at 10:15 a.m. the moment finally arrived and I was let into the store.
By 9:45 I had moved to the very front line, and my coworker had arrived to keep me company.
Alas, although I though I'd arrived at the home stretch, I was slightly dismayed to learn that it would be another 45 minutes before I'd be at the very front.
A few blocks up, the line kept growing, as a second wave of late-risers showed up.
A security guard I had talked to earlier in the morning said Apple had prepared for around a thousand people, and didn't think the store would run out of stock until late in the day.
But the wait continued.
As a launch event newbie, I had been under the impression that once the store opened, it would be a quick in and out process. I was very wrong.
Apple employees began greeting people waiting in line around at 8:45 a.m., and signing people up for the exact make and model of the iPhone X that they wanted to ensure it would be waiting for them when they did finally make it to the front.
When the store opened at 8:00 a.m., the sun had finally come out and spirits were high.
Inside the Apple store, the lined up phones made for a tantalizing display.
At around 7:00 a.m., Apple employees began arriving for their shifts and prepared to greet the masses.
Many of the people I met in line enjoyed the experience of the wait, and had been to launch events before.
Victor Aldeguer is a flight attendant from Spain. He had flown in the night before and was leaving the next day, but decided to spend his one day in San Francisco standing in line in hopes of getting an iPhone X. The last launch event he attended was in Spain for the iPhone 5G. He had waited 18 hours then.
There was something invigorating about being out and about in the dawn hours, and watching the city come to life.
By 6:00 a.m. the line seemed to be waking up a bit.
The nearby Saks Fifth Avenue store that we were lined up against began playing cheery music, and Apple employees brought around free Starbucks coffee and donuts to bolster our spirits.
Andrew Chen was the fourth person in line, and he had been there since 2:00 p.m. the day before.
Chen has been to every iPhone launch event, and was planning on buying the Space Gray 64 gigabyte model.
"It's not a phone, it's an experience, the waiting for something," he said. He was there with a few other people, and said that those at the very front had been taking care of each other, taking turns to get food or go to the bathroom during the long wait.
It was a calm scene at that early hour, with most people chatting among themselves or looking at their phones.
Even at 4am, there were probably more than 100 people already waiting in line. Apple had security guards posted around the lines, which made me feel a lot better about being on the streets so early.
Others were much more prepared.
Lacking my own camper chair, I set a (rather sad) brown paper bag down to mark my place in line.
I arrived at 4:00 a.m. to a drizzly morning.
I claimed a spot at what I thought was the end of the line about two blocks up from the store entrance. I quickly learned that the line actually kept stretching around the corner, and moved to my place in the back.
The people in the very front of the line had been there since the morning before, and had come prepared with chairs, umbrellas, and lots of blankets.
Since I'd be getting there in the dead of night and San Francisco is getting chillier, my main concern was the weather. So the night before I laid out my many layers in preparation.
Source: Business Insider India