Gadgetory

Changez and iphone contracts are changing the dynamics of iphone lines I'm Bridget Carey this is your C net update Apple's iPhone 6s and 6s plus went on sale in stores around the world on Friday and at New York City's flagship Fifth Avenue Apple Store there was the usual cheering and high-fives from employees as customers who waited overnight funnels into the store to be the first with the new models it's the same site we see every year but something was very different this time around the line at this flagship store was extremely short compared to previous years now the iPhone isn't losing popularity what's more likely the case is that consumers don't have a big reason to buy at an Apple Store when you can get a better deal by going directly to a carrier store take this into consideration any diehard iPhone fan that has been with AT&T for years may have one of those old unlimited plan contracts where you pay $200 upfront well you can no longer renew that plan at an Apple Store you can only get it if you buy directly from AT&T t-mobile and Sprint have crazy cheap leasing plans for customers who trade in their old phones but you have to go to the carrier store to get the deal Sprint is only charging $1 a month for an iPhone 6s and 6s plus it's in its upgrade every year plan and t-mobile is offering the iPhone for $5 a month in stores normally in years past the line wraps around several city blocks as you can see in this video from last year it was utter chaos with people running and becoming an unordered most of the people in line at this store last year were reselling it to buyers in China because China wasn't getting the iPhone on day one so people were making profits of 300 or $500 a phone selling it to buyers overseas now this year that changed China was among the first 12 countries to get the iPhone but the demand still exists for buyers from other countries that don't have it yet and don't want to wait the first customer out of the fifth avenue Apple store was Justyna CE junetta a 25 year old student visiting from Lithuania she pre-ordered a rose gold model and jumped in line at 2:00 a.m. but pre ordering made it easy for her to get out first when she ran out the crowd cheered for her to open it up and show it off and she didn't drop it luckily she now heads back home to Lithuania where the iPhone 6s is not yet available to buy that's it for this tech news update and if you have a story to share about your iPhone by an experienced email update at cnet.com or send me a tweet from our studios in New York I'm Bridget Carey