"I've been doing it since Day One," Horton said. "It's the experience more than anything. It just happens to be the hottest phone on the market."  Near the front of a line of about 200 people Friday morning, Horton said he got about an hour's worth of sleep while meeting new friends from what he called "the iPhone family."  At 8 a.m. local time across the U.S., thousands who spent hours waiting in line were greeted with cheers as Apple stores and other retailers began selling the new phone. More than 800 people were already in line outside the flagship glass-cube Apple store on Fifth Avenue in New York City by the time the store opened Friday morning. Dozens of people there had been in line since Monday.  Initial demand for the phone, at least in the U.S., appears to be stronger than for previous models. One analyst estimated that based on counts at Apple Stores in New York, Boston and Minneapolis, the lines Friday were, on average, 83% longer than those for the iPhone 4S last October.  Those iPhone shoppers (or "fanboys" and "fangirls" as they're called by less-supportive tech enthusiasts) in the U.S. weren't the first, though.  Throngs of shoppers lined up outside Apple stores in Sydney, Australia; Tokyo; London; Paris; and Munich, Germany, among other cities where the phone went on sale.  Hundreds of cold and tired but excited customers were lined up outside the Apple store on London's Regent Street Friday morning. Many had been waiting outside the store all night without food or anything to sit on, but the general consensus seemed to be that the hassle had been worth it.  "I've been waiting since midnight, so 12 hours now," said Fahir Wardak, a 21-year-old student. "I haven't really eaten but it wasn't that cold and I've got some tea now so it's alright."  And why was his 12-hour wait necessary? "I've already got the iPhone 4S and a MacBook Pro so it's like having a collection really," he added. "You just want to keep going along with it."
In what's become an annual rite, thousands of diehard fans of Apple's iconic smartphone endured long overnight lines outside Apple retail stores around the world to be among the first Friday to buy...