I Experienced An Apple iPhone Launch

The title says it all. This morning I woke up at 5:20AM, showered, got ready, got into my car, and drove over to the Apple store in the Roosevelt Field Mall.  I arrived at the mall at approximately 6:15AM, parked, and headed inside to the Apple store. When I got to the store I saw a bunch of roped off areas but barely any people so I crawled under the ropes (instead of having to walk all the way down and back) and began to wait in line. I felt pretty good and thought to myself I’ll be in and out in no time – there is no one here. That unfortunately wasn’t the case.

After waiting in line for about 2 minutes an Apple employee walked by and asked me if I had reserved a phone, I said yes and he continued on his way, only to find another employee asking me the same thing a few minutes but with the follow up question, “did you check in?” to which I responded “no”. This is when I was informed there was a line outside of the building in the parking garage which I had to go through to get checked in. At this point the feeling of “I did it! I beat everyone here” was gone and I headed towards the parking garage to get in the real line.

I made a few friends while waiting in line, we talked about numerous tech topics, showed off iPhone apps, and cracked a few jokes to pass the time. Apple employees were handing out free water and rice krispie treats to everyone waiting in line (a nice touch – did anyone else have similar treatment?).

At approximately 8AM I was next in line to go into the Apple store and pick up my iPhone 3G S. When it was my turn to go into the store one of the employees outside escorted me into the store to meet with my specialist (the person who gets you your iPhone, talks to you, activates it, and rings you up), he got my iPhone, asked me for my information, and then, asked me a shocking question (one which I wasn’t really expecting) “would you like to do the honors and open the box?” to which my reply was “……sure!?” I’m not sure if that’s commonplace during iPhone launches (as I’ve never been to one before) but I love how they treat the device like it is a gift from God himself. Nonetheless, while I opened the box, I asked my specialist, “so what happens when the next version of the iPhone is released and they can’t fit anymore icons on the front screen of the box?” to which he replied with a chuckle, “hmm… that’s a good question. I don’t know.” (I think they may just make the icons look like they are exploding out of the box but who knows).

After paying, I opened the camera application on the iPhone 3G S and started to record myself walking out of the store when one of the employees outside asked “are you recording video?” I replied, “yes, would you like to say hi?” and he did while congratulating me on my purchase (along with the other customers who were clapping as I left the store).  I wish I still had the video so I could upload it but I accidentally overwrote it while restoring my iPhone 3G backup to my 3G S.

My first impressions of the new iPhone 3G S?  Much faster at everything from loading applications to web pages, much better camera (the quality is amazing for a 3.0MP camera), and voice control is pretty cool.  I will have a full review up once I get a chance to thoroughly go through everything.