My Fabulous New iPhone

The iPhone 3G was released a few days before we left the States. Being gainfully unemployed, I went down to the Apple Store at Stanford to pick one up. I arrived around 9:30 am and the line had perhaps 100 people in it. The staff estimated it would take 2 hours. Well, after a little dithering, I decided to stay and wait.

The wait was mostly pleasant, a shady line area with the occasional bench - and Teuscher employees swinging by with coffee and cold chocolate. My casual observation was that about half the people in line already had the original iPhone. However, the staff estimate proved to be wildly optimistic, due to server and activation problems that have been widely reported. When I was near the end of my wait, a man walked down the line offering $100 to take someone's place - he had no takers!

After about 3 hours, I was finally in the Apple Store. Then I learned that due to various circumstances (switching my cell number from an Oracle corporate plan to a personal plan for example), I would not be eligible for the service discount if I kept my old number. Much irritated and after an annoying conversation with AT&T, I ended up getting a new phone number. It was going to cost me $200 extra to keep my old number and I refused to give idiot AT&T any additional revenue.

Aside from that one mar on the surface of my iphone experience, the unit is truly fabulous. It surfs the net like a dream (although at my house in Menlo Park, there's only Edge and not 3G). The interface is intuitive and App Store has done for apps what iTunes did for music. I've downloaded 19 apps so far, 3 of them paid for.

I'm in Thailand now and the iPhone is not released here. So whenever I pull it out, it's an object of great fascination. I gave my father an extended tour the other day - he was quite impressed. While travelling, data roaming charges can rack up, so I have that turned off and the iPhone picks up wifi for data whenever available.You can see the above screenshot of the GPS location of where I am right now - Emporium Suites on Sukumvit Soi 24 in Bangkok.

I couldn't be happier with my new toy!