The iPhone 6 launch is underway with customers forming long lines at Apple Stores around the world, most notably in New York City, where we caught up with fans waiting as many as 19 days.

"We were actually the first in line, but these guys came after us and bought our spots," said Staten Island resistant Joseph Cruz. "They paid us each $1,250 (about £757, AU$1,395) just to shift down to three and four."

Cruz, his cousin Brian Ceballo and others are betting the popular iPhone 6 Plus will be in stock when the Apple Store in Manhattan opens its door at 8 a.m.

They're really attracted to the big screen. "You can do so much more with it. Instead of having a little phone trying to look at videos, you can actually have a mini tablet," Ceballo told TechRadar.

iPhone 6 Plus is the big, big want

Not everyone may be lucky, as the 5.5-inch phone is reportedly in short supply. In fact, from all of the Apple diehards we talked to, almost everyone was itching for the phablet. It's this year's gold iPhone 5S.

"It's a bigger phone," said East Harlem's Balde Agdnelaze "If you have it, you don't need an iPad. It's just an iPad replacement."

Not only does iPhone 6 Plus have a larger screen next to the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 display, it has a higher resolution, larger battery life and an 8-megapixel camera with an optical image stabilization.

You can find out more about the iPhone 6 vs the iPhone 6 Plus in our in-depth comparison coverage.

Lines twice as long in California

Sitting outside the landmark Apple Store in Santa Monica, we found the iPhone 6 launch line to be twice as long as last year when the iPhone 5S came out.

That's despite the fact that Apple took pre-orders a week in advance, something that wasn't done in 2013. iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are thinner, but the lines are not.

iPhone 6 hopefuls that we have talked to have flown in from as far as Hong Kong and Brazil in an effort to be among the first with the new phone at a much cheaper price than it is in their home country.

To them, camping in line is a better alternative to ordering it from Apple's online store. It's three to four weeks out from shipping if you order it today.

More to follow...