According to reports from iLounge editors and across the web, lines are growing outside Apple retail stores in anticipation of the iPad’s official launch at 9:00 a.m. Our editor at the Walden Galleria store in Buffalo, NY, the crowd is split up into two lines—one for customers with reservations, and one for those without—with the lines roughly equal in size. Notably, the customers in line have been told that the store has plenty of iPads on hand, so many in fact that customers who made reservations are being allowed to upgrade the capacity of their iPads to 64GB if they like, although this moves them out of the reservations line and into the general purchasing pool, and customers can even expand their single iPad reservations to two units.
Unsurprisingly, several iPhone developers who are anxious to test their iPad apps on a real device are among the first people in line at the Galleria store, a situation likely similar to that of other stores across the country. A small number of accessories are also being shown, including Apple’s iPad Case, Dock, and VGA Adapter, along with cases from Belkin, Hard Candy, Incase, and Speck. We will continue to update this post as more information comes in; if you’d like to share your line photos and notes with us, please email news (at) ilounge.com and include your name and Apple Store location.
Update x1: The line at the Walden Galleria store has grown by roughly 60 people over the last 45-50 minutes, from 90 to 150 customers.
Update x2: The crowd at the Walden Galleria store was roughly 300 people by the time the store opened; we’ve added pics of the iPad window display and in-store display below.
Update x3: A crowd is beginning to gather outside the South Coast Plaza store in Costa Mesa, CA.
