On 22 September 2023, customers queued at an Apple Store in Beijing on the first day of iPhone 15 sales. On-the-ground reporting by the South China Morning Post documented the opening-day line and customers collecting reserved phones. Even after an online order, identity checks and handover still required a physical sequence.
The launch came as competition from Huawei’s new phones was drawing intense attention in China. People nevertheless gathered at the store and waited for the moment when a digital order became a box in their hands. Online retail had not eliminated the queue; it had moved it to the final few metres between reservation and possession.
The source does not establish every customer’s waiting time or motive. What it does establish is an ordered wait in Beijing on launch day. The line shows that even the newest consumer technology can depend on one very old arrangement: taking turns to receive something.