iO-Mess fails to deter Kiwis as iPhone 6 arrives in NZ

iO-Mess fails to deter Kiwis as iPhone 6 arrives in NZ

As orderly queues gathered along Queen Street, when the clock ticked midnight both Vodafone New Zealand and Noel Leeming opened the doors on round two of Apple’s iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus release.

Kick-starting the second wave of availability across the world, Auckland got the party underway at 12:01am, with Spark New Zealand customers following suit seven hours later at 7am.

Providing red bean bags for the first ten people in the #vodaqueue, as it was known on Twitter, Vodafone’s first customer was Damon, a guy who’d been waiting in line since 3pm yesterday to get his hands on Cupertino’s flagship device.

Vodafone New Zealand        ✔ @vodafoneNZ

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If you're in Auckland, come on down to our launch party, things are just getting started! Good times with @TheEdgeNZ

1:50 PM - 25 Sep 2014

Not far along Queen Street Noel Leeming also welcomed in customers, the first time the electronics retailer has offered an Apple iPhone in store on day one of the official New Zealand launch date.

“We’re delighted to offer our customers the latest technology and help them get the best from their products, so by being part of the New Zealand iPhone 6 launch, we’re cementing our place as the market leaders in consumer electronics,” said Jason Bell, Executive General Manager merchandise, Noel Leeming.

As reported by Computerworld NZ yesterday, Spark livened up proceedings by replacing customers with Emojis in a bid to cut down on queuing, a move which proved successful as Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Christchurch all sold out of the cardboard cutouts within 72 hours.

Undeterred…

But as punters around New Zealand, and slowly the rest of the world, wake up and head to the stores, Apple continues to work “around the clock” to fix serious issues with its newly released iOS 8 software. Just a week after introducing the operating system to the market, Cupertino has taken the rare step of withdrawing the first update, following reports of wireless connectivity problems and battery drain.

“We have a workaround for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus users who lost cellular service and Touch ID functionality today after updating to iOS 8.0.1.,” an Apple spokesperson told Computerworld NZ.

“Affected users can reinstall iOS 8 through iTunes, for more information visithttp://support.apple.com/kb/HT6487

“We apologise for the great inconvenience experienced by users, and are working around the clock to prepare iOS 8.0.2 with a fix for the issue, and will release it as soon as it is ready in the next few days.”