I counted exactly 99 people in the queue in front of me when I arrived outside the Apple store in Corte Madera, California at around 7.15pm on Friday. There were more queuing inside past security, while others were steadily emerging with their special iPhone bags, most of them carrying the maximum-allowed two.

I’m not a queue jumper but I did happen to meet John Paczkowski, who blogs at All Things Digital and was halfway along the line. He was only buying one and offered to get me mine. By 8pm, I too was walking away with an iPhone bag.

John had arrived at 6pm when they first went on sale, finding a much longer line. But the Apple operation was impressive, buyers were processed quickly with no need to activate the phone instore and emails being sent out rather than paper receipts issued.

It was so organised and there were enough iPhones in stock to make anyone who had been queuing long before 6pm look foolish. The profiteers may feel even more so if the iPhone fails to sell out and they are unable to double their money selling theirs on eBay.

The iPhone comes in a stylish black box, the kind you expect to open and find a Fabergé egg nestling inside. Everything about the packaging oozes class, matching the phone it encases. You feel you are holding a thing of beauty: sleek, black and silver, a heft to it that lends substance and a display that lights up to reveal an interface unmatched by any other handheld device, let alone cellphones.

Activating it was a cinch online once I had downloaded the latest version of iTunes. It also synced right off the bat with my iTunes library and allowed me to import contacts and diary items from Outlook and bookmarks from Internet Explorer.

The iPhone likes to be stroked. A lot. This is probably a feature intended to engender pet-like attachment from its owner. Apple could have made it purr, but that could have made it too Furbie like. You stroke the iPhone to unlock, scroll through lists and flick through photo slideshows and iTunes record sleeves.

My first impression is that this is a design statement and entertainment device rather than a useful business tool I would carry around for work. Too much functionality is hidden for the sake of clean design in both the interface and the number of buttons available. The Edge network is painfully slow for web browsing, I find the keyboard far too small and practically impossible to use at the moment and I cannot imagine my IT department delivering company emails to me on this device.

Watching videos, listening to music and viewing photos is a dream though. My kids loved it, but could not figure out why this was the only phone they’d ever encountered without any games on it.

I’ve only had the iPhone a few hours, so these are first thoughts and there’s a first look on video below.

June 30th, 2007 in Consumer Electronics, Digital media, Internet, Media, Mobile, Software, Telecommunications | Permalink