As a matter of fact it is the awesomest!

Whoa! What a weekend!

We got to the Apple store just after lunch on Friday where we ended up being a respectable 50th in line. Apple employees brought us water and coffee while we waited. We were thanked for our support of Apple several times and rarely made to feel like jerks for waiting in line for a phone. The phones themselves arrived around 4:00pm and we were informed that they had "plenty" of them. And they did! There were stacks and stacks of them!

Where the Great Apple Experience ended...

The flaming tailspin into the inescapable pull of AT&T hell promptly began.

We spent the better part of the entire weekend in various states of AT&T limbo. Nobody could tell us what was going on. Our beloved phone was apparently stuck in a failed activation loop. And a popular instruction from the polite and apologetic but ultimately clueless AT&T agents was "wait a little longer." We believe that AT&T, in an effort to bulk out their work force, hired a bunch of people specifically for the iPhone launch. I spoke to at least 3 people on Friday who told me that this was their first day on the job! Of course they had no clue how to help me, and were easily overwhelmed.

We finally spoke to someone on sunday who told us we would have to have the sim card replaced in our iPhone. Which we did, with the help of the lovely Celena at the Perimeter Apple Store. (She called the nearest AT&T store, and had a sim card waiting for us when we arrived.) Celena at The Perimeter Apple Store really saved our bacon, and was really nice about it the whole time despite the fact that I was totally freaking out, and had been for 3 days solid.

A special thanks also goes out to Chris at the AT&T Perimeter Store, he had our new sim card ready to go and set us up in minutes. (we also know how to get to the sim card now, which is partially hidden on the iPhone)

Our phone works now. And it is the awesomest.

The Phone:
The display is amazing and clear and crisp. The interface is easy as pie and tastes twice as nice.

The 2 megapixel camera takes fine quality photos (given there is enough light) and using the entire display as the camera view-screen is beautiful.

Typing on the touch screen keyboard takes a little getting used to, but feels pretty natural. Especially when held in the sideways position so the keyboard is bigger. It's a bummer that sideways positioning only works in Safari. I'd love it if all the programs utilized that amazing feature. Especially Mail!
Do it Apple!
seriously, do it.

I'm really looking forward to the web applications that are being written for iPhone's Safari browser. There's a lot of potential there... but I still haven't found any "web apps" out there that I thought were especially great or that I absolutely had to bookmark.

Dudes, the iPhone is my new best friend. As douchebaggy as it sounds, even when Ferris Beuller said it, that doesn't mean it's not true:

"It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up."

I made a desktop for the iPhone:

It has been recommended that you save iPhone desktops into an iPhoto album and sync it through iTunes under the "Photos" tab. I'll probably be making some more.

Oh jeez, I can't believe I almost forgot about this. Our friends at Nattybumpercar have put together a Special News Report from Coffee Can Alley TV’s News Room all about the release of this great phone. You should check it out.