iN Line at Alderwood for the iPhone 3G

by Jim Valley

I'm here in Lynnwood at Alderwood Mall outside the Apple store for the launch of the iPhone 3G. The first guy in line got here at 8 o'clock last night. So he will have spent 12 hours in line.

The line stretches from the Apple store around the plaza to the Macaroni Grill. I'd guess it's approaching 200 people at around 7 o'clock.

7:30am

The line is growing. I'd say around 300 people (but I'm not great at estimating)

Here's the front. That's my friend Chris eating McDonald's. His wife couldn't sleep, so she came out and got in line late last night/early this morning. What a woman. That's love.

This guy dressed up for the occasion. He's only 26, too young to have given up already...

Here's a look at the 2.0 updates.

Super Monkey Ball!!!

It doesn't look as good as the Wii or the GameCube, but it does look better than the DS.

Facebook.

The light saber application. It makes the whooooooosh noise when you shake it, but I think that's all it does.

Rotary dial function. Why?

I guess because you can...

I'll have more pics after the launch.

8:43am

Oh, boy. AT&T is having some problems. It's taken this long for the first person to come out of the Apple Store. Apparently the store was having problems accessing AT&T servers to verify people's accounts. Things worked better after a reboot, I'm told. But then the iPhones couldn't be activated in the store through iTunes. Employees here are telling customers that the system is probably just overloaded. So now people are getting verified through AT&T in the store and then being told to activate their new iPhones at home instead of at the store. So right now there are a number of people who can't make calls with their new iPhone until they are able to activate them themselves.

Oh, well...I guess some sort of glitch was to be expected.

45 minutes later, here's the first guy to walk out of the Apple store with a new iPhone 3G.

Here's the line at its longest (at about 7:50am)

An Apple "concierge" explains the form you have to fill out to get your iPhone 3G, complete with details about your AT&T service and your social security number.

Apple was even handing out bottled water and serving coffee.

Waiting...waiting...waiting...

This guy was the first in line. He finally left the store at 9:10am

He has a beautiful, new iPhone 3G. But it doesn't work yet.

He has his fingers crossed that it will work when he tries to activate it from home.

The problem is, he transferred his phone number to his iPhone 3G, so he can't get any calls until he activates his new phone.

People here still seem surprisingly patient and upbeat.

Oooooooooh...iPhone bags. People actually paid $$$ for them on ebay during the last iPhone launch. I'm not sure that will be the case this time.

This is my childhood friend Chris and his wife Stacy. He's a big Mac geek. We call Stacy the iWife. She got up early this morning and got a good place in line. Chris agrees that's quite a sacrifice, but adds he went to the "Sex & the City" movie.

That's iLove.