Despite causing complete chaos on the east coast, Hurricane Sandy couldn't stop hundreds of people from lining up in New York City to await the arrival of the new iPad Mini.
Apple's newest device was supposed to be released at 7 a.m. today at Apple's Fifth Avenue store in Manhattan, but the release time was bumped up to 10 a.m. which upset many people who waited all night for the device.
According to CNET, a 21-year-old named Andrew Li arrived at 10 p.m. on Thursday to wait for the new iPad device. Li cited his home losing power due to Hurricane Sandy as the main reason he was able to wait for the device. He was planning on purchasing the 16 GB Mini before heading home to see if his home had power again.
The turnout was expected to be much greater than it actually was, but the amount of people that showed up would have probably been even greater if it wasn't for Hurricane Sandy. According to ABC, 300 people were in line as of 8:00 a.m.
Two major Apple stores in the city will be closed on the release day due to power outages as well. The storm is being called the worse storm to hit the east coast ever and has affected millions of lives, homes and businesses alike.
There were people waiting overnight in locations like Ohio and California as well and the biggest turnout was in China according to Reuters. Apple isn't discouraged by the small lines however, as they expect the demand for their entire line of Apple products to increase with the holiday season coming up.
"Lines are just one metric of excitement, and I believe the closer we get to the holiday season, sales will pick up," Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, said to ABC News. "The iPad Mini isn't nearly as differentiated as the iPhone or the iPad 4."
The iPad mini starts at $329 and has a much smaller 7.9-inch screen compared to the bigger iPad options that come with a 9.7-inch screen according to Apple.
The tablet runs on iOs 6 software, weights half as much as the normal iPad does and is made completely of aluminum. The tablet will have a 10 hour battery life, two mini cameras and a duel-core A5 processor according to Apple.
The company is expecting to sell somewhere between 1.5 to 2 million iPad minis this weekend. Three million iPads were sold last March when it was released according to Reuters, but there was less of a competition among products compared to the iPad mini.
The mini is expected to compete directly with devices like the Microsoft Surface, Google's Nexus 7 and Amazon's Kindle Fire. The Nexus and Kindle Fire options are available for less money than the iPad mini.
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