Correction at 4:40 p.m.: This image had incorrectly identified one of the men as an Apple executive.
Apple's senior vice president of iPhone software, Scott Forstall, makes a guest appearance before the store opens. He snapped some photos of the crowd and chatted with Apple employees before heading inside to watch.
Tech blogger Robert Scoble emerges with one of his two iPads. Scoble showed up at the store on Friday and stayed there overnight.
Smule's "mule" gives those in line a chance to play with the iPad, and with the developer's new Magic Piano app.
E.R. doctor Kathy Corby shows us one of several pages of the medical apps she has installed on her iPhone. She plans to use her new iPad to access them as well.
An Apple Store "genius" stands in front of a wall full of iPads at the Palo Alto Apple Store.
Ganesh Kaveripakkam has his shiny new iPad opened up by a Palo Alto Apple Store employee. While users could buy their iPad and keep it wrapped up, Apple was offering to help users boot it up and get going.
Here, the Lopez family of South San Francisco checks out the iPad.
"It's nice. The price is good," Gonzalo Lopez said while checking out a car racing game.
Still, he wasn't yet sure if he would buy one. He already has an iPod Touch.
By contrast, at 9:55 a.m. EDT Saturday--10 minutes before the store opened--only a handful of people were lined up at the Best Buy store near Columbus Circle in New York City.
Jason Haber, 33, first in line at this store, lives only a few blocks from the Best Buy on West 62nd Street and Broadway. He said he came to the Best Buy store at 8 a.m. to find no line.
Some shoppers said they were just looking and would wait for the second-generation devices to be released. The store manager said the store had plenty of iPads in stock. She doesn't expect the store to run out of the first shipment until at least the end of the day. She also said she expects the store to remain well stocked throughout the coming weeks, which means anyone wanting an iPad won't walk away empty-handed.
Niehaus, 29, said he waited till 8 a.m. and then headed to the Best Buy story near Columbus Circle and became second in line there.
At 10:30 a.m. EDT, Apple representatives said the store still had plenty of iPads in stock.