Apple launches the iPhone!

10:23pm

Whew! What a day! First off, let me say a huge thanks to my excellent girlfriend Elizabeth for coming and swapping batteries for me, to John for coming to Wash Sq to buy his phone and hang out all day, to Starbucks for all of the free goodies, the Washinton Square mall staff and security and to Apple for the excellent line experience, coffee, water, donuts and other goodies.

Ok so since 3pm it went like this:

• Charles showed up to hang out with us and take photos.
• Barry showed up to check out my phone and hang out
• At 6pm, they opened the doors to a loud countdown and let 10 of us in the store.
• The entire purchase experience was 5 minutes. It was seriously excellent. With Apple’s handheld scanners, they moved us through very quickly.
• I went across to the Made in Oregon store and activated the phone in 5 minutes. No issues, no delays. smooth as silk.
• I synced mail, contacts and bookmarks quickly, then we went to dinner with Elizabeth at the Cheesecake factory.
• We played and played and played, I will make another post on phone impressions.

Today rocked! Check out new photos!

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2:53pm Photos Updated.

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2:36pm Rob Griffiths of MacWorld and MacOSXHints fame is now in line with us and even captured me in a photo on his blog entry.

Apple has closed the store and will re-open at 6pm. Overheard from the security guards is that they will be letting 10 people at a time into the store for purchasing their phones.

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1:45pm Someone from last November’s Wii line outside Fred Myers just looked me up. I didn’t remember him and he sat next to me!

Photos updated, sorted descending now

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12:30pm While eating lunch I hear my name being called. It’s Elizabeth’s parents! Odd seeing them here, as they live up in Washington. Turns out they are not here for the iPhone, but rather their car is in the shop down here and they had 3 hours to kill. Also funny is that Elizabeth had just left after dropping off this battery (she is swapping dead batteries with me and charging them at home. Does anyone dare ask why I love this woman?). They caught up to her though as the Crocs booth had slowed her departure from the mall. Imagine that 🙂

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11:16am John got lunch after they passed out food court coupons, but not for what he wanted heh.

Quote of the day: “are you in line for that new iPod?”

Line has wrapped into the second stanchion.

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8:26am Apple delivers coffee from Starbucks!

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7:20am John “CatCow” and I are in line at Washington Square Mall in Tigard (Portland), Oregon for the launch of Apple’s much awaited iPhone! I arrived around 6:20am to find 11 people in line ahead of me. They had already started an informal list of people in line. John arrived just before 7am which is when they let us into the Mall.

Apple was present along with mall operations, reminded us to remain civil and already had stanchions in place for the line.

Upon getting in line, Apple informed us that Starbucks will be delivering coffee at 8am! And then the awesome mall operations folks moved the mall benches along the wall for us to sit on all day! How awesome is that?

Then it got even better when mall folk brought by donuts for everyone!

There were rumors in line that Apple would be charging us for our phones at 7am and letting us go home. So far Apple has only reminded us that phones don’t go on sale until 6pm. 🙂

I will update this single blog entry and keep adding photos.

The photo album can be found here:

Photos from the iPhone launch