Thousands line up for China iPhone 4 launch

Michael Kan of Computerworld covered the launch of the smartphone. With "more than 1,000 people lined up outside" the brand new Beijing store, Saturday's iPhone 4 launch saw significantly better turnout than last week's rained-out iPad launch.

Several Apple fans camped out for the release, with the coveted first place in line going to Yu Zhong Hui, who lined up after 5 a.m. Thursday. "When you want something, you have to pay a price. The price I paid is that everyone has had to see me wait out here," Yu said, according to the report.

Last week, China Unicom announced that over 50,000 users preordered the device on the first day that preorders were offered, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. The announcement alleviated analyst's fears that China's lucrative gray market, which bypasses official channels to bring devices in from overseas, had cooled consumer interest for the phone.

After last year's launch of the iPhone in China, China Unicom saw an underwhelming 5,000 new subscribers in the iPhone's first week of availability. The muted sales may have come as a result of regulatory complications that prevented the official China iPhone from launching with Wi-Fi.