iPhone 3G launching

Hiroyuki Sano, a graduate student who turns 25 this week, couldn't think of a better way Wednesday to celebrate his birthday than being the first person in Japan to own an iPhone.

So he ditched class in Nagoya and headed 160 miles north to Tokyo's trendy Omotesando district, home to mobile carrier Softbank Corp.'s flagship store. Sano arrived at 6 a.m. Tuesday,
grabbed the first spot in line and prepared to wait three days and one hour until Apple's much-hyped handset goes on sale Friday at 7 a.m.

A longtime Apple fan, he brought along his MacPro laptop and iPod, as well as a change of clothes, an umbrella, snacks and a folding chair. He even got permission to skip school.

"My professor is a big Apple fan, so when I told him I wanted to come line up for the iPhone, he told me to go for it," Sano said after a fitful night of sleep in his chair. "My mom told me I was crazy."

Apple plans to sell its 8-gigabyte iPhone for US$199 in the United States and the 16-gigabyte version for US$299. The company says it has sold about 6 million iPhones so far this year and has a goal to sell 10 million

About 15 other iPhone enthusiasts had joined Sano in line as of Wednesday morning, eager to get their hands on a device that hasn't been available in Japan until now. The previous generation of iPhones, which operated on GSM-based networks, were incompatible with Japanese systems