iPhone 3G S

It seems only fitting that I had to buy the iPhone 3G S on its first day of availability after buying the original iPhone on its release day. This time, I made my way to the Apple Store on West 14th St. in Manhattan instead of the one in the Menlo Park Mall in NJ.

As I arrived, I could see quite a line (perhaps 300 - 400), blocked off by barricades and stanchions. There were two lines, actually. One was for people who reserved an appointment with that store online, days earlier. The second, slower-moving line, was for us nincompoops who thought that we could get there at that day's special opening time of 7:00 a.m. and get our new iPhones minutes later. It was not to be. I was interviewed by WABC for a news story on the iPhone release. I'm about 40 seconds in.

I waiting in line for over two and a half hours until I was 14 people away from the front of the store. At almost 10:00 a.m., I had no choice but to leave the line to get to work. Hey, the phone would still be there. My fellow comrades-in-line were incredulous when I left the line. I could only smile and say to the impatient woman behind me, "Well, you're one person closer now."

After work, I trekked back over to that store, only to see a familiar line of people,

knowing that I could expect at least another hour's wait. Since it was a Friday, I decided to head home, grab up my son, and head to the ol' faithful Menlo Park Mall Apple Store. We raced down the Garden State Parkway, sauntered into the mall only to find this ... the store was closed for renovations for a week. On the day of a major product release!

Of course that mall's AT&T store was out of iPhone 3G S's, so we raced back up the Garden State Parkway to the Short Hills Mall, where I waited a pleasant ten minutes to finally get my iPhone 3G S ... phew!

All in all, I'm thrilled with the new phone. If I could sum it up in one word, that would be "faster." Everything about this phone is appreciably faster than my previous iPhone -- the data speed (3G), the start-up, switching among applications, opening new browser windows, etc. I'm loving it. I'm only dreading the inevitable day that I get that first scratch. As far as the features go, I pretty much covered that here.