KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 19 — I was at Malaysia’s very first iPhone Day last year at the first Malaysian Apple store so it just felt like a good idea to see if the second time around would be as exciting.

This year, Vietnam joins Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia as first-wave iPhone countries in the South-east Asian region so I wasn’t expecting to see the same Vietnamese gentlemen I met last year.

Apple started giving out armbands to those wanting to queue for walk-in purchases the day before but even with the armbands, excited fans still decided to queue in the early morning to be the first in the country to officially purchase Apple’s new line-up.

By 7.30am there was already a crowd of over 200 people waiting to be let in by 8am; a slightly smaller crowd than last year’s which was around 300 or so but the excitement was still palpable.

Customers were greeted by smiling Apple Store employees who gamely counted down to when the doors would officially open.

This year, Daniel, 19, a student from Johor was first in line for the pre-order queue. He told me that he’d been at TRX since 12am, that was how excited he was to get an iPhone 17 Pro Max in Cosmic Orange.

Daniel even wore an orange T-shirt to match his new phone.

First in the queue for walk-in purchases was 27-year-old Md Tushar Ahmed Hasan, a business owner from Bangladesh, who also wanted to bring home an iPhone 17 Pro Max and yes, also in the new Cosmic Orange.

Tushar had been at TRX since 4am in the morning, that was how determined he was to be first in the queue.

Also pre-ordering an iPhone 17 Pro Max was Mahathir, 30, a videographer.

He said that while he liked his iPhone 15 Pro Max it tended to overheat, which impeded his work.

“I hope the new iPhone 17 Pro Max will fix the overheating issue,” he said.

While Apple has always positioned the base model iPhones as the “iPhone for everyone” it can’t be denied that the Pro models still attract a very special kind of Apple fan — the type willing to queue up in the wee hours just to say they got it first.

Until the next iPhone Day!