Apple fans finally get their hands on an iPhone

Norrice Auen and her 18-year-old son Luke arrived at the Derby Street Shoppes in Hingham on Thursday evening.

Mom spent the night on the sidewalk, sleeping on a yoga mat and a Red Sox towel. Luke spent the night in the Hummer.

But they were only second in line when the Apple store here finally threw open its doors at 6 p.m. today, capping weeks of hype and anticipation over the latest must-have tech accessory.

People skipped work, played hooky, and paid friends or strangers to stand in line on their behalf -- all to be among the first to lay their hands on an iPhone.

"My grandmother's doing well, but my co-workers don't think so," said a Hingham resident who sat in a lawn chair reading Mao: The Unknown Story and asked to remain anonymous because he had left word at the office that he needed to travel to see his grandmother.

The launch of the phone -- on a summer Friday, on a weekend without any major summer blockbuster movie releases -- was the culmination of a perfectly played marketing pitch.

Take an object that people already fiddle with compulsively.

Add a screen that makes the device even more touchable, and emphasize the allure of touching it.

Then don't let anyone near one for six months.

"It builds the mystique. What makes something more mysterious than you can't touch it?" said Kathy Sharpe, chief executive of Sharpe Partners, an interactive ad agency based in New York. "They've positioned it as a product that is reponsive to you and at the same transforming" the way you use a device. "I think it's brilliant marketing."

The line began forming outside the Apple Store at the Cambridgeside Galleria at 6 a.m. today; the Burlington Mall was transformed into a landscape of laptops and lawn chairs; more than 100 people stood outside the AT&T store on Boylston Street in Boston when the store opened its doors.

Allan Yogasingam, a 26-year-old engineer from Ottawa camped out in a maple leaf chair outside the Hingham store for 12 hours, and was back in the car on the way to the airport by 6:10 p.m. Tomorrow, he plans to come into the office to show the phone to his co-workers.

"There'll be lots of people getting their grubby fingers all over it," he said.