I got mine at the Apple Store at Stoneridge Mall in Pleasanton, CA.
Got there after work at 4, line was down the mall entry way, outside and along an outdoor sitting area in front of a Macaroni Grill. I said, "daaamn" out loud, I was expecting a lot of people, but not THAT many. The Macaroni Grill employees were bitching about all of us standing there. Apparently, it never occurred to them that you have a bunch of people standing in a line for a few hours, who can't go anywhere around dinner time who'd probably pay top dollar for some grub and drinks. Instead of trying to make some dough, lets just complain. Lots of people walked by taking pictures and video.
One guy was in line behind me, you know, one of those guys who's "too cool". When Apple employees were coming by passing out water one of the managers (?) said, "You guys excited for 6?" She was just trying to be nice, though it was kind of hokey. Mr. Too Cool says, "no" with his back turned, you know, cause cool people only can act big when the person they're trying to be bad with can't see who had the big mouth. The manager just brushed off, while I made a comment about how only an idiot would stand in line like this for something they weren't excited about. Too Cool didn't have anything to say to that considering I was looking right at him and the whole line in my area was laughing. Overall, it was nice of Apple to have water for everyone and somebody was passing a bag of candy and treats from the Candy Shoppe in the mall. Whether this was Apple or a nice person in line, it was nice to see the line cohesion as lame as that sounds. People came up asking, "Is this the iPhone line?". I'd say, "No, this one is for Stones tickets, iPhone is on the other side of the mall".
Overall, it took about 30 minutes to get through the line and in and out of the Apple Store. Was really impressed with how the store personnel handled it. They seemed genuinely excited about what was going on though they had to run around like crazy for hours. Got it home, plugged it in and went through the iTunes activation. It froze the first time, then wouldn't let me in for another 3 attempts. Finally I got through without a hitch. Played with the "Slide to make Emergency Calls" thing while it activated. I made the mistake of immediately syncing all my iTunes music right after activation, so for 20 minutes I just stared at the "Syncing" screen. Put way too much stuff on the first time, so I went through and made an iPhone playlist with most of my music, with a few omissions of music I only listed to every once in awhile. Gave me a lot more room.
My first thought when I started using it was how cool the touch screen was and the fact that it just simply worked, which might seem odd. When I was in a SMS chat or tapping around, everything just worked. I found that oddly cool for some reason. EDGE was faster than I thought and didn't lag much as expected. Everyone I showed the landscape feature to was blown away, I showed my cousin how to zoom in on photos or pages and he had to do it a few times like he didn't believe he was actually doing it, or that the phone was reacting to his touch. When I got back on my PowerBook I was kind of annoyed at how inefficient a mouse was after using the touch screen. That wowed me a little bit. So far so good if you ask me, everything works really well, pretty seamless and quick. Screen is quite impressive, I know a lot of the specs have it around or near that of other Smartphones, but it looks so much cleaner, clearer and brighter.
I don't know what's with the reviewers talking about how bad the keyboard is. When the tutorials say you have to just trust it, they're right. I just start typing and it has around an 80-85 percent accuracy rate, and that's only after having it for less then 12 hours. If you're trying to painstakingly hit each and every individual key then yeah, it would be sort of annoying. But that isn't how you're supposed to do it.
I do have a few very minor grievances though.
_Firstly, what's the point of wallpaper if it's only in the screen you see when you're unlocking the phone or when a call is coming in? The wallpaper you set is for a screen you are on 5 percent of the time? Shouldn't the wallpaper be in the main home screen too? Maybe I missed something and that's possible. Would also be able to customize the colors of the bubbles in the SMS chat window. Again, maybe you can and I haven't found it yet.
Actually, those are the only real issue I have off the top of my head, which is extremely minor as far as the whole experience goes. Already dropped it once, ironically when I was thinking about how I had to be extra careful not to drop it. I haven't had a cell phone for the last couple of weeks, my last one broke and I wasn't going to get ripped by AT&T for a piece of crap with iPhone just around the corner. Reach in, pulled out my wallet and watched in horror as my iPhone came flipping out. Luckily it was only on carpet, got to freaking be careful, man. Overall I'm really impressed with the interface, efficiency and the ease of use. It's really an incredible innovation. No way in hell could one possibly go back to "other" phones. This thing is absolutely generations ahead of anything available out there. Just incredible if you ask me.
