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UPDATE: Alex Lee aka alexglee is reporting "Getting harassed outside george street #apple store. Security guards inside looking out. #ipad2 #ipad2line #ipad2sydney". Follow the #ipad2sydney hashtag (linked below) for live Twitter updates. Original story continues below:
The previously reported iQueue of 17 in line for an iPad 2, with Alex Lee (alexglee on Twitter) now famously first in line, has grown. There's no precise number being reported as yet, but for now, it is bigger!
Tweets via #ipad2sydney indicate that the iPad 2 line has now grown into King St, and on towards midnight and if not through the night, then throughout the day tomorrow, lines at Apple Stores will grow.
They'll grow because people who have tried to purchase iDevices on their respective launch dates know that stock is limited as the iPad 2 is this time being widely distributed globally on a much faster basis.
The iPad 2 is also being snapped up by resellers who will resell them overseas on online to people willing to pay more than retail to guarantee getting one, thus putting extra pressure on locals who want to buy one or more too, without paying a reseller's inflated price to get it.
That said, with people seemingly openly paid to stand in line for people ready to send the iPad 2s to Asia and elsewhere in the world, but then it's the pure economics of supply and demand at play, and an indicator of the globally perceived worth of Apple's products. People are willing to pay above retail, sometimes way above retail, to secure an iPad 2.
To avoid this scenario you can either wait a presumed couple of months at least for supplies to become more regular, something that may or may not happen that quickly.
Or you can try to buy one tomorrow or over the weekend. After all, once initial Friday and weekend stocks are gone, replacement stock would likely come and go fast and if you miss out, history shows you just have to wait until more stock becomes available.
Apple has boosted iPad 2 production but when you launch in 26 countries within the first month, and several more the month after, you can see where all of that extra production is going - to as many countries as is humanly possible as quickly as possible, setting the iPad 2 up as the undisputed global tablet champion of 2011.
Android is powerful, of that there is no doubt, but if you want the most integrated experience that even babies can master across multiple titles with a still very elegant UI, which is bound to see a next-gen UI improvement in a future iOS 5.0 upgrade, the real slim tablet is already standing up, Mr Eminem.
As Dark Helmet said, Google believes its schwartz is as big as Apple's and the lightsaber battle of the iDevice and the Android has at least five more movie-length episodes to go we get to find who's who in the Death/Life Star and light saber zoo.
That said, most people in the iQueue aren't think of Android Honeycomb OS 3.0, they're not think of the Xoom, they're not thinking of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 or the ViewPad 10s, they're not thinking of the LG Optimus or future Sony tablets or Chinese tablet brands that succeed so well they become new global brands all their own.
They're thinking of iPads and the iPad 2. What are you thinking of?
