Below, a snapshot of the line at the front of the Apple Store in University Village, for those lucky few who had made it to the front at around 12:30 today. The back of the line stretched all the way across the façades of nearby stores, then made a 90° turn to continue through the parking lot and ended up at the building housing Zao Noodles.

^[1]

God knows what the scene was like earlier, but one possibility is that the line has actually grown over time as massive slowdowns ^[2] in the iTunes infrastructure necessary for the mandatory in-store activation ^[3] have hobbled the launch of Apple’s highly-anticipated new phone.

Any reports from line survivors, either in AT&T stores or Apple Stores in the area?