Fans Line Up to Snag "For Steve" iPhone

Paying tribute to the Apple icon, co-founder Steve Wozniak among those who lined up to buy the new 4S.

By Abby Ohlheiser | Posted Friday, Oct. 14, 2011, at 11:23 AM ET

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Apple customers line up to enter the Apple store in Munich for the launch of the iPhone 4S.

Photo by Frank Leonhardt/AFP/Getty Images.

Apple fans and iPhone lovers around the world snaked around city bocks on Friday morning in hopes of getting their hands on the new version of the popular smartphone, which went on sale in stores at 8 a.m.

The release of the iPhone 4S, unveiled the day before Steve Jobs died, appears to have become something of a tribute to the Apple co-founder.

In Los Gatos, Calif., CNN reports that Steve Wozniak, who helped found the company with Jobs, was the first in line to buy the new phone, riding his Segway to the store at noon on Thursday and staying overnight.

In Sydney and Tokyo, Reuters also found fans vying to be the first to get the 4S, which many, sweetly, decided stands for "For Steve." Haruko Shiraishi, at the end of the eight-block line in Tokyo, told the news wire: "I am a fan, a big fan. I want something to remember Steve Jobs by."

Others appeared to be scooping up the phone’s latest incarnation out of a fear that Apple will lose its way with Jobs no longer around. "Since Jobs died, I wanted to make sure I had a new iPhone with some advantages over the old,” Mark Du in Sydney told Reuters.

Many stores, including those in Tokyo, Sydney, New York, and California, reportedly have small, fan-built shrines springing up outside their doors.

Whether for journalistic integrity or simply because many journalists are the sort of nerds who would line up for a new Apple product anyway, there are plenty of live blogs and accounts of life in the iPhone waiting line, and the inevitable dissection of the product's features after purchase.