Hello to all...
Well yesterday was quite the day for us Mac Addicts (or is that now Mac Lifers??? hehehe) It was the release of the iPhone and all that came with it.
I got to the AT&T store about 12:40 p.m. yesterday and took my places in line along with Kelly. We brought camp chairs, hats and reading materials. We got to be the 14th and 15th person in the line. I talked to the front line guys and the first guy arrived on Thursday night at 6 p.m. and processed to set up his area and wait it out. A friend joined him about 9 that night and they sat under the awning for the store during the rain storm and through the very quiet night, no sleep just reading by flashlights and listening to music (glad it wasn't me!).
The 3rd guy showed up about 8 am Friday and the rest trickled in mostly between 11 and 12. Added us and by 2:30 p.m we had about 30 folks in line. At the time the door opened at 6 p.m. we had about 60 folks there.
The folks at Atlantic Station were awesome...They came around with water and Apples every 2 hours to serve to everyone in line. Mike, the owner of the Tahitian Noni Cafe brought us energy drinks and fruit chews, 2 of the restaurants served breakfast to the guys that were there that morning and then some folks brought some food over to others at about lunch. We of course watched spots for people to make bathroom and drink runs, as well as get some air inside one of the stores when they were feeling a little too warm.
Thankfully the weather cooperated and it was just a might warm, never really got hot hot, as it can here in Atlanta. The sun proceeded to recede behind us so by mid afternoon we were all in the shade and the rest of the wait was a little cooler
Kelly read his book and listened to his iPod while I did about the same for a short while, but to be honest I was more interested in schmoozing and talking to folks and working the crowd, with the Xpo flyers etc. Passed them out to everyone or at least the folks that were on macs (several were just there to buy iPhones to sell on eBay). Several people were on laptops, PC and Mac both I might add. Other folks just talked, did the music thing with the many iPods I saw in use, and tried to stay as cool as possible. Most folks brought chairs, but some when they saw us in chairs, had friends bring them chairs later on as well as drinks etc.
Several of our line family shared drinks with us and one of them had his girlfriend fill a cooler with water soda and ice and treated most of the line to drinks and munchies (as an appeasement for letting his girlfriend into the line who was getting all the snacks!) Kelly went over to publix at one point to get a box of ice cream bars and we passed those around as well.
Anyhow, the wait went quickly and the wait was over and we cheered as they started letting us in. I will say one thing about the people at the Apple Store they certainly know how to handle a crowd and the folks at AT&T really had no clue (g)
Being 14th in line I waited until 6:20 to get into the store and then another 15 minutes to get my iPhone as well as a car charger and a leather sleeve for the phone (they both seem to work well!). Oh did I mention one the of the folks near us really wanted 2 phones so we haggled and ended up selling Kelly's place in line for $100! WAHOO! That was cute Not so cute, a guy at the door was offering $500 for someone's spot (never got a taker as far as I know)
We talked to a few more folks then went to the car (which Kelly was able to move right into the street and we filled with quarters the last hour we were there, so we went outside the store and got in the car and we re on the way to Lenox!
We got the car parked at Lenox and got inside the mall about 7 p.m.. Lo and behold there were only about 75 more folks left in line, so we quickly passed Maclanta Xpo Flyers out, while avoiding the Security Guards questions about what I was passing out and then we hightailed out once we saw and talked to a few Apple folks. Seems the line was well over 400, but they processed them in record time. Kudo's to them for the proficient job as always
So anyhow....
We get home I set up my iPhone,and I can't see to get a connection to AT&T to work correctly, says all connections busy to try again later. I was able to Sync the phone and played with that on and off for a few hours and finally gave up and went to bed at 12:30 am, with the iPhone working but no cell service (and my Razr was no longer active as well)
Got up this morning read some post over on MacOSRumor Forums and several people talked about working around the problems allot of folks were having connecting to the activation process. So I checked for the email they sent to my .Mac account click on it and still nothing. Then popped out the SIM card from the iPhone and popped it back in, then ACTIVATION and we had the live symbol and 4 bars we had cell service. YAY!
So the iPhone is simply gorgeous, works exactly as the commercials have shown and the keyboard will take a little getting used to it but it beats tiny weeny keyboards I have tried to use before or txt'g from my Razr.
LOVE IT, even with the overnight hassle!
Ok this was long enough of a post, so Have a great day. I will post more as I check out more of the phone
Your Intrepid Pres!
Mike
