More than 100 people lined up outside the Apple store at Eaton Centre in Toronto to be among the first in the world to get their hands on the tech giant's new iPhone.

After being unveiled earlier this month, the iPhone 4S went on sale in stores around the world on Friday at 8 a.m. in each time zone.

Employees and a large crowd outside the Apple store at Eaton Centre erupted in a loud cheer when the clock struck 8 a.m. and the store's doors opened.

People began lining up outside the store Thursday morning, bringing chairs, books, MP3 players, computer tablets and snacks to get through the lengthy wait. The first person, Nelson Fong, showed up Thursday at 5 a.m.

Tech journalist Sergio Miranda flew to Toronto from Brazil so he could buy Apple's fifth-generation smartphone, which set a record for a million pre-order sales in a single day.

Once he got his hands on the phone, Miranda was gushing and said the long trip was worth it.

His favourite feature? Siri, a new voice-activation system that acts like a personal assistant.

"It's like having a Star Trek computer in your hand," Miranda, a magazine editor, told CP24.

With Siri, an iPhone user can control the phone - by sending out an email or calling someone, for example - with voice commands.

With a three-year contract, the smartphone is selling for about $160. People are shelling out at least $650 to buy it without a contract from a mobile carrier.

In addition to Apple stores, the phones are available at authorized resellers such as Best Buy.

Apple co-founder lines up

Lineups occurred outside stores across North America, including Los Gatos, Calif., where Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak was first in line Thursday.

Wozniak told a local NBC station he has two iPhone 4S models on the way, but he planned on staying outside the store overnight to get his hands on the phone even sooner.

Available in black and white, the new iPhone is an upgrade from the iPhone 4 model, featuring a faster processor, new operating system, a better camera and improved video quality.

In addition to Canada and the U.S., the phones are debuting Friday in Australia, France, Germany, Japan and Britain.

The phone was unveiled a day before Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs died after a battle with pancreatic cancer, and it's being released just days after the latest woes for BlackBerry maker Research in Motion.

BlackBerry users around the world experienced service outages and disruptions that lasted one to three days, beginning in parts of Europe and the Middle East last Monday and spreading to North America two days later, leaving customers frustrated and many threatening to switch to a new phone.

RIM blamed the outage on a core switch failure that caused a data backlog.

With files from The Associated Press