Yes. I got an iPhone.

Yes. I actually purchased an iPhone.

I fell for the marketing hype .. Apple’s clever slow spoon feeding of information to the general public.. those tantalizing commercials.. those little tidbits of information that would pop up here and there. I fell for the lust that ensued within me. The desire to have what could be the messiah of all devices.. the one device that would complete my technological life. Yes. I fell for the device. I fell to the need to stand in line hours before the actual launch of the product.. waiting.. hoping that my hands would fall upon a single instance of the iPhone – not knowing how many were actually going to be available on launch day.. so I waited.. and wanted.. and desired.

And so.. here I am. Finally with an iPhone. My life complete? No. My life fulfilled? No. My lust for gadgets fulfilled? Somewhat. My desire to write a review? Most definitely.

But before I jump into a review (which will come out a bit later because it does take me time to write these suckers..), I thought I’d recap my day yesterday. Actually.. my adventures began the night before.

On Thursday night, I drove out to the local AT&T store near my home wondering if there was actually going to be a line building for the iPhone. I had heard that the Apple store at the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica already had lines waiting so there was no way I was going to go there.. but what about this AT&T store? This particular store was at the corner of Pico and Sepulveda – a bit hidden from everything else out here so there was a chance there wasn’t going to be a line. Sure enough, at 11pm Thursday night, there was indeed no line at this store. Awesome.

Friday morning comes around and I head to work. At around 11am, I gave a call to that AT&T store to see if there was a line building and the operator on the line mentioned to me that there were approximately 30+ people in line. Hmm ok.. that’s manageable. There was still no word as to how many iPhones would be on hand at AT&T or at Apple stores.

I get to the AT&T store at around 4pm.. and get in line around on the backside of the store. There’s about 150+ people in front of me.. maybe more but I figure I have a shot at the phone. This AT&T store apparently handed out ticket stubs right before I got there and unfortunately I missed out… but did that mean I would not get an iPhone? No word.

So I waited.. and waited.. and waited.

Luckily I managed to strike up some excellent conversations with the folks around me which definitely helped pass the time. So the clock drew near. At around 5:50pm, the line started to solidify.. from a mass of people to a single file-ish formation. At 6pm.. we moved.. slowly though because AT&T was only letting in 4-5 people at a time and they were only calling the ticket numbered folks. GREAT!

To make matters worse, AT&T registers were god awful slow. Pay by credit card? You’ll be waiting.. and waiting.

Finally at around 7:15pm, I got to near the front of the line and a salesperson comes out of the store and says:

“We’re out of 8GB iPhones but you can order them here and we’ll ship them to you in 2-3 days”.

You can imagine the disappointment in the crowd (you also heard a lot of “WHAT!!??!?!” comments .. or were they WTF?). Luckily I had no plans to get the 8GB phone – sorry I just don’t believe in spending 100 dollars for 4GB of flash memory – that folks is a ripoff.

A few minutes later, I finally got in and purchased my 4GB iPhone.

The funny thing was, I used my Treo 700w from Verizon Wireless to call various Apple stores in the area – from third street to Century City to the Grove and you know what? There were PLENTY of iPhones available there. In fact the Grove had NO line whatsoever and they had both 8GB and 4GB iPhones. My plan to wait at an AT&T store was nearly foiled because Apple gave many more iPhone units to Apple stores instead of AT&T stores. Granted – there are MANY MANY MORE AT&T stores.. but somehow I still felt somewhat annoyed.

As an aside, I dropped by the Third Street location of the Apple store today and they still had 4GB iPhones in stock. The 8GB’s were all gone.

So there you have it. My experience at the iPhone launch here in West Los Angeles. It wasn’t quite as glamorous as being at an Apple store… but it was still interesting and yes.. my lower back is a bit achy as a result.. but I have an iPhone.

I repeat.

I have an iPhone.