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Friday, I checked out an iPhone line at an AT&T store in St. Louis to see how folks were holding up after spending hours waiting for their chance to buy Apple's uber gadget. Although it was 5:30 p.m., the thirty or forty people on line—one who showed up 12 hours earlier—were still happy and eager do their part in the nationwide launch. I'm sure much of that had do with not just the coming to the end of a 12 hour wait on line, but being on the cusp of finally having the iPhone in their hands after what has really been a six month journey.

Two days since the launch and a number of AT&T stores are sold out, but you may still be able to find an iPhone at an Apple store, according to recent reports. Looks like Apple saved many of the initial batch of iPhones for itself.

 

After spending a few minutes inside the store with an iPhone before the official opening, I was left alone to play with the iPhone after it opened; only one person who waited on line actually stopped to check the device out. The vast majority ran out the door to head home and get their iPhone activated.

While most folks appear to have found the iPhone's at-home-only activation quick and painless, there are those for which the opposite is true. As of Sunday, some of the folks who ran into trouble during activation (you must use the latest version of iTunes -7.3) are still waiting. Apple is solely responsible for customer support.

I got to spend well over an hour with an iPhone, coming away super-impressed with its large, bright and colorful high-resolution display and Safari Web browser. Apple's multitouch interface technology made zooming in and out of areas on Web pages and in photos extremely easy. It really was a revelation. Pinch your fingers together to focus in and apart for out.

  
                                                                                                     Web Browser

The device itself fits very comfortably in the hand, and is surprisingly compact. Although it may take a while to get used to only having one button, for going back to the home screen, I found that button very convenient and useful: Whenever I wasn't sure what to do next, I hit the button to get myself centered again.

As an iPod, the iPhone, at least in terms of its interface, excels. While the display and multitouch interface play a huge role here, it was the implementation of Apple's coverflow technology, which allows you to browse through your music via album covers, that made using the iPhone as an iPod most pleasurable. The jack for headphones/headset won't fit most headphones, however, so if you want to use something besides Apple's earbuds, you'll have to get a third-party adapter. Belkin’s already got one available for $9.95.

   
                            Coverflow                                                                                                    Camera

While I didn't get a chance to use the iPhone as a video iPod, there are reports that, unlike with the fifth-generation video iPod, there's no way to output video to a television, because there's no third-party accessory that allows you to do that yet. In addition, some have found that while the iPhone seems to work fine with iPod audio docks, video docks posed a problem, causing the iPhone to display the message: "This accessory is not made to work with iPhone."

The onscreen keyboard worked alright at first and quite a bit better about an hour later. I can see how typing on it would continue to improve with practice, especially with two thumbs like with a BlackBerry keyboard. You can't have the keyboard go into landscape mode in most applications however, which would have made two-thumbed typing quite a bit easier for those with fat fingers like yours truly.

  
                                                                                                          Keyboard

Google Maps worked well, especially with multitouch enabling you to pinch/zoom in and out of maps and satellite image. These downloaded at a pretty fast clip, considering the iPhone was using AT&T’s EDGE data network and not its 3G-enabled HSPDA network.

 
                                                                Google Maps

The same went for the YouTube applet. Every video I chose to view came up very quickly. Perhaps all the effort AT&T has put into upgrading its EDGE network (with more T1 lines put in on the backend) is helping data performance after all.

 
                            YouTube Menu                                   YouTube Video Playing on the iPhone

So, as expected, most everything that came with the iPhone seems to work great. However, there's still much missing that could be a deal breaker. Outside of a number of missing software applications found in most smartphones and feature phones, some of which will hopefully arrive later on through software updates, you still have to contend with no removable battery, no chance at 3G, the inability to increase storage through an expansion slot, and, if the touch screen keyboard/keypad isn't for you, a hard-keyboard option, for example.

 
                                                                     Photos

We'll be posting a comprehensive review of the iPhone later this week. For more pictures of different iPhone functions, see the next page.