The iphone cometh...finally.

My iphone finally arrived on Thursday almost 1 week after it premiered. I actually lined up for 3 hours last Friday at the AT&T store and they sold out of 8gb with less than 20 people ahead of me. It turns out someone screwed up the inventory and the Ala Moana Apple Store got like ~1200 units and the AT&T stores only got 20. I was so tempted to just get the 4gb but I'm glad I waited for the 8gb. Even at double the capacity, 8gb is still inadequate if you have a lot of movies or photos - Apple will have 30gb within a year I bet - but it's better than 4gb. I'm still surprised it arrived so quickly as the AT&T reps said it would probably be at least a couple of weeks until they shipped. Since last Sunday, all iphones (4gb and 8gb) are sold out in Hawaii.

First impressions:
Start up: I wasn't impressed by the activation process. I think it's poor that Apple forces you to sign up with AT&T before they will unlock the iphone. You cannot use or even view a single function (with the exception of an emergency only call) until you have signed up. There are various ways to try and circumvent the AT&T contract but Apple shouldn't have locked up this device - especially since there are numerous other functions such as wi-fi connectivity that are not contingent on a wireless plan.

Usage: Very intuitive user interface and near instant response when you touch the screen. So far I love everything about it. I can definitely see some application upgrades in the near future. For example, Mail could use batch delete and junk mail options and Calendar could be more beefed up with To Do and Meetings functionality.

Overall, it lives up to my expectations and then some.