On Friday, I decided I would be one of those people standing in line in front of the Apple Store. I didn’t camp out over night, but actually went around 6:30 and was out by 7. The people in line were friendly and seemed pretty excited about the product. I saw a lot of people talking on Blackberrys so it seemed like people were going to replace those. I was one of those people. I had just bought a Blackberry Pearl about a month ago and really this it is a great product. For the short time I used it, it was probably one of the best phones I’ve ever used. The line moved pretty fast and as always the Apple Store employees were very friendly. They brought demo units out in line so people could try the product while they wait. Also one employee was collecting trash from water bottles they had passed out earlier and made a joke saying you could throw your own phone in the bag as well.
The line was pretty well ordered and I think this helped to move through faster. People knew what they wanted and I don’t think anyone left disappointed that night. I talked to a guy in line and he was hoping that they integrate Exchange functionality in the iPhone to replace that of his Blackberry. I can see where he is coming from. Most of the companies that I use Exchange with have the IMAP option on so this isn’t really an issue for me. As far as the work I do, most applications only allow for one Exchange account which makes sense, but I work with a few different companies and each one has their own system. I remember when I had my Palm Treo I set it to use Exchange and it wiped out all my calendars and contacts.
Overall, I’m pretty happy with the phone. I didn’t have any activation problems that some people had. I think that’s expected that not every single product is going to work especially since there were so many hitting the iTunes store at one moment. Overall I think Apple and AT&T did a good job in trying to make it as easy as possible for its customers. I’ll have more to comment on later and make sure you check out my full review of the iPhone at lightenment.com that I’ll probably post sometime this week. If you have any questions, as always I’m available to assist.
