Robot buys iPhone in publicity stunt

Lucy Kelly does not do queues. And while it is not usual for some to pay others to wait days in line for a major sale to begin, Lucy opted to send a robot instead.

The Sydney woman sent a robot, also named ‘Lucy’, to take her place in the queue for the sale of the latest Apple iPhone.

Kelly, who works with the media agency Atomic 212, which organised the publicity stunt, is believed to be the first person to use a robot to buy an iPhone.

IPad Lucy took her spot in line around 5am on Thursday , according to Mashable Australia, and held strong behind three people.

Meanwhile, real-life Lucy continued to go about her business, going to work and staying out of the cold.

She operated the robot, an iPad attached to a Segway-style scooter, via remote control from her home.

“We use [the robots] for everything, just to show new technology. It is a cool demonstration of what the future of technology will be,” Kelly told Mashable.

The company she works for reportedly has six of the telescopic rovers for employees to play with.

Once the robot made payment inside the Apple store, the new iPhones were placed in a bag and hung on the microphone of the robot, Lucy said.

She then remotely wheeled the robot through the city centre where colleagues were able to safely collect her phones for her.

Passersby and fellow tech lovers in line took notice of the odd one out in the queue, even chatting and taking photos with Kelly via video conference.

“I wanted to be one of the first people to have the iPhone 6S, but obviously because of work I can’t spend two days standing in line waiting for a mobile phone,” Kelly told Mashable. “So my boss said ‘just take the robot down’.”

The BBC reported that the person first in line for the Sydney release, the first in the world based on time zones, had been waiting there for two weeks.