It’s not just the weatherman heating up New York – it’s iPhone fever burning through Big Apple techno-geek circles.
College student Jessica Rodriguez scurried from her Bronx home yesterday to get a prime spot on line at the Apple flagship store on Fifth Avenue more than 72 hours before the revolutionary high-tech phone goes on sale.
“I think I should have prepared a little better. I forget my iPod,” she said, wilting in the 90-degree heat.
The hotly sought-after phones go on sale nationally Friday at 6 p.m. local time around the nation.
Sitting across from Grand Army Plaza at 59th Street, Rodriguez said she wasn’t fazed by the prospect of plopping down at least $500 for a phone that has received mixed reviews from tech magazines and Web sites.
“I think so highly of everything Apple,” she said. “You can’t get a Mercedes-Benz and pay Oldsmobile prices.”
Rodriguez, 24, is planning to give her purchase to her sister as a 21st-birthday present.
She hopes to purchase one for herself, too, but says store staffers haven’t revealed how many she’ll be allowed to buy at once when sales start.
Recent University of Chicago grad David Clayman, 21, also joined the line – so he could buy an iPod and auction it off for charity.
He added that if he’s allowed to purchase a second iPod, he’ll give it to his father, whom he called “the best dad in the world.”
And if he snares a third? He’ll keep it for himself, he said.
Dozens of students and the otherwise unemployed have posted ads on Craigslist offering their services – for a few hundred dollars – as placeholders on line outside Apple and AT&T stores around town.
The iPhone has been the talk of gearheads nationwide, boasting eight hours of talk time on a single charge, Internet access, camera, video and an MP3 player on a touch-screen-only interface.
Apple and AT&T announced that in addition to the cost of the iPhone itself, monthly wireless-service plans, with a two-year minimum contract, will run from $59.99 for 450 minutes of air time to $99.99 for 1,350 minutes.
Apple and AT&T are not accepting advance orders and the phones will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis, officials said.
Tech watchers are anticipating the phones will be a hard-to-get item for months, reminiscent of the brisk sales of the PlayStation 3 when it first went on sale last year.