That's right. You heard me. I own an iPhone. And instantly upon purchase, I became, skinnier, younger, richer and hipper. Well, at least the latter.

I drove by the Lubbock ATT store this morning at 7 to find people already camped out from the night before. I called my Mom in a panic. "Get in line! I beg you! I'll be off work at 11." And you know what? My amazingly kick-ass Mom did just that.

I tried my best to actually get some work done til 11, and for the most part, succeeded. I got the shakes at 11:15. I was about to hyperventilate. Because I was going to wait in line. For a phone. You hear me? The shakes. Loony.

And so it was. I relieved my Mom from her post as #18 in line. She eagerly hauled it out of there and I started the "get to know the other geeks next to you" process. The woman next to me TOTALLY caught me off guard. She was 50-ish and fairly matronly. I quickly assumed she was sitting in line for her kid and didn't give it a second thought. She WAS waiting in line for her kid, as it turned out. A 16 year old cute kid who had actually saved up his own money for months so he could get the iPhone. Props to you, my brotha. I wouldn't have saved up for a BEER at 16.

But then I discovered that the woman was also waiting in line fer herself. A Mac user for 15 years, she was UP on all the Mac details. She wasn't playing around. She did seem a little quick to profess herself the goddess of all things Applified, but I'll admit, there was nothing she said that I would disagree with, and she was up on all her software, the latest hacks, the iTV (and the Eye TV), and knew her stuff. It always pisses me off when someone judges people based upon how they look. It pisses me off even more when I do it. I pegged this woman all wrong. She was super-cool, and made the wait all damn day a pleasure. The kid to my other side was a college cutie who was easily as excited as I've ever seen anyone be about any product. He was darlin'. He said he was going to see Ratatouille tonight, which cracked me up. I mean, how much money to you HAVE to give Steve Jobs in one day? Apparently, $599 + $7.50. Too funny.

Some idiots had put up a tent last night that was actually larger than the ATT store and clearly were trying to sneak people into the front of the line with it. I called bullshit on that and they finally took it down. The latecomers were taken to the back of the line. By the launch of sale, there were somewhere around 150 people there, give or take. For Lubbock, that's a pretty impressive turn-out. No clue if everyone in line got their phone. But I did. I DID!!!

My friend Chris is in Boulder, and he's in line for the iPhone as well. We promised to open them at the same time via iChat, so I still haven't opened the box, which is a HERCULEAN effort on my part, I must say. I get the Good Friend Award for this one, Chris.

So, hang on with me for a couple of hours, my pretties, and I'll be delivering my first review of the iPhone. I know, you're all on the edge of your seats.

Update #1. Unhappy User.

The iPhone is dead as a doornail. I have to charge the thing before I can even see the home screen. Not a happy camper. Chris', of course, started right up. Figures.

Update #2. Hysterically Happy User.

The iPhone was finally charged and it was time to activate. It was easier than setting up an email account. It was A BREEZE. In three minutes, in the comfort of my own home, my cell phone was activated, all within the tidy little iTunes app.

o At first glance, the gorgeousness is overwhelming. The screen is CRYSTAL clear (better than the home monitor by far).
o It synched my contacts without any problems (though it should be noted that it does NOT import Smart Groups, only "Real" Groups.)
o The keyboard is so much easier to use than any Palm device I've ever used. Period. I know some people were stressed about the keyboard- don't be. Tap lightly and you'll be typing like the wind. If you push hard on the keys (as if it was a real keyboard), you're gonna want a drink. (It is also worth noting that a stylus will not work at all with the iPhone. I'm a huge stylus fan. So I at least had to try.)
o Photos synched great and the slideshows work like a charm. I find myself wanting to "flick" everything up down and sideways. It is smoooooooooth. VERY useful and super-quick.
o It didn't synch iTunes stuff on the very first synch, so now it's time to do that.

I'll get back with you after that's done.

Update #3. Overall, Happy and Satisfied User.

Now that I'm fully synched, let me give you the serious low-down.

First comment, and this is a biggie: The accelerometer is WAY overhyped. A LOT. Gratuitously so. It is very random, sometimes thinking it is on when it's really not, and then not working at all in apps that you would expect it to. I had, for some reason, been left with the impression that you could watch videos portrait and switch to landscape. Nope. Landscape only. (Which makes perfect sense, of course, but being used to the video iPod, I found myself wanting to switch it to portrait mode.) In addition, Cover Flow only takes place in landscape. (Again, this makes sense, but it's a little annoying to be constantly switching the phone from one end to the other.) It's the only thing, visually speaking, that I have to complain about.

Second comment, and this is a biggie: The multi-touch screen is WAY underhyped. A LOT. It's the greatest thing I've ever played with in that respect. Pinching in, pressing out, again with the flicking to scroll- and my personal favorite- swiping your finger from left to right over a contact or email to delete it. This is SUCH a good idea. Keeps you from having to click on edit, then click on the delete key, then going back out of edit mode. This is Apple logic at its best.

Third, another biggie, though I may have to retract this later: Remember the first time you sat your laptop on your thighs, fiddling away, then smelled the familiar scent of burning fabric as your jeans melted into your thighs from the heat? Well, that's NOTHING compared to the heat coming off the iPhone when you're making a call. After my first ear ignited after five minutes of talk time, I switched to the other ear which also caught ablaze, thus singing my eyebrows and burning off all my hair. Good thing the iPhone still makes me cute. In all seriousness, I made the ten minute call over an hour ago and I can still feel some sting at the tops of my ears. I'm not joking. HOWEVER... and this is why I might have to retract this, during the call, the iPhone was plugged into the computer to continue charging. Because it was still charging, I'm praying that's what made it so hot. But if not, and it really is going to run hotter than the surface of Venus, I'm kinda okay with that. It makes a great excuse to get off the phone. "No, really, I TOTALLY want to hear about what your new puppy did, but the heat from my phone just burned out my cochlea, so I gotta catch you later." Works for me.

(Semi-unrelated side note to making calls on the iPhone, or even just using it in public- While I was on the phone with Chris, who was in an outdoor café while he played with his phone, I heard NO LESS than three women come up to him and fawn over the phone. "Is that the iPhoooooooone? It's sooooo cooooooool! How did you geeeeeet oooooone?" This thing is a chick-magnet the likes of which I've never heard. And it's cheaper than a puppy.)

Now, I'll go through this in order of appearance on the home screen:

o Text Messaging- Easy as iChat. Looks like it and sounds like it too. Wonderful.
o iCal- Same old app you're used to, although it's a more fun interface than on the Mac. I never use times in iCal on the homa machine, but I'll use time on this gadget. And if you want to see why, you'll just have to try it for yourself. Beautiful little way of changing the time. Fast? No. But it's pretty.
o Photos- Fantastic, as previously stated.
o Camera- Astoundingly easy to just shoot something and email it. It's faster than lightning. Quality isn't too bad either, for a 2 megapixel cam.
o YouTube- SLOW. Really slow. But that's okay. I'm too busy to mess with this particular feature anyway.
o Stocks- Who are we kidding? This is going to be another neglected app. I have stock, of course, I just don't clock it. It will do what it will do and I have other things to do than worry about what it's doing.
o Maps- This was a big selling point for me, and it doesn't disappoint. WITH ONE EXCEPTION- you can't add random bookmarks for your own sites unless it's something Google recognizes or has an address for. In my case, this bugged me, because the first thing I went to look for is this house I will someday own on top of a mountain in Colorado. I found the house no problem, as I know where it's at by sight, not address, and since there is no address, I couldn't bookmark it. Huge problem? Nope. But annoying. This could have been an easy fix really. Maybe in Rev 2.
o Weather- Just like the Dashboard Widget. And if you crawl into your titanium encased cellar every time it sprinkles a bit, like I do, this will come in reasonably handy.
o Clock- Well, it IS, in fact, a time keeping device. Whaddya know. Darn sure is easy to set up an alarm here. And I'm a BIG fan of alarms, so I'm very happy with that.
o Calculator- It adds AND subtracts! Woot!
o Notes- It is what it is. Another feature I'll use ad nauseum. (Merlin- take your Moleskine and shove it!)
o Settings- Oh WHAT FUN THIS WAS! I love messing with settings. I wish there would have been more, but I was cool with the options I had. GREAT ringtones. It was a tough call between Sci Fi and Sonar, but Sonar won out.
o Phone- Good quality sound. It's SO much better sound than the Razr, which I've been using for two years now. Vast improvement. Still, it's hot. Speakerphone worked like a champ and adding a call to a current call was super simple. There's also not odd delays causing you to speak over each other, and two of us were on iphones in the three person call. Overall, impressed.
o Mail- This was easier to set up than my HOME email. Fan-friggin'-tastic. (And I'm not on Gmail or Yahoo or any of that. I set up my own IMAP account.) I'm not a big fan of checking voicemail messages OR email messages, but I managed to clean out more email during five minutes on the iPhone than I did all week everywhere else. Lovely animation on delete, for what it's worth. This is going to be great for my productivity- at least until I remember it's STILL email and it STILL pisses me off even though it's on an iPhone and I start ignoring it again. Then again, it's hard to ignore that red 34 that's hovering over your Mail icon down there. Hope this makes for a good motivator.
o Safari- This is really nice. Looks just like you'd expect, only smaller, and zooming in and out is so simple. Only complaint- I found that it was really easy to accidentally click on links when, in reality, I was trying to scroll around the page or pinch in or out. If you're on a link-laden page, this is gonna piss you off.
o iPod- So far, one of the lest impressive apps on the phone, oddly enough. I mean, it's an Ipod, and that's great, but it requires A LOT of clicking to get to a certain song if you're not exactly sure what you want to queue up next. Browsing is not very friendly. And cover flow so far has proven to be just as useless on this thing as it is on the Mac, though I prefer the way it reacts to a finger as opposed to the mouse. I might learn to love it. For now, its just eye candy. Sound quality is as good as you would expect. (One note here: the headphones are a NON-STANDARD jack, so you will have to purchase an adapter to use your own headphones with this thing. This is a drawback for me, because the shape of Apple earbuds hurt my ears, but then again, my headphones don't have a mic. Give and take, I suppose.)

I have not gotten to use Visual Voicemail yet, and this was hands-down, unquestionably, the biggest feature for me on the iPhone. I'm sure other phones do it, but this was the first I had heard of it, and I was sold that moment. I'll let you know if it's bad or doesn't work like it's supposed to, but for now, let's all assume it works perfectly. After all, it's Apple...

Overall, I'd say it's been a damn fine day. Jesus loves me and all is right with the world. Was it worth the wait? Yep. Did it deserve all the hype it got? At this point, I'd emphatically say yes. I'm a bit concerned about the temperature thing, but if that turns out to be a charging thing, then I'm sold on this little contraption. Lots of money and a full day well spent. So go get yourself one now. You know you want it.

SECOND DAY UPDATE:

The heat issue was, in fact, because it was charging. It's not too bad unless you get into a conversation longer than an hour.

One major issue I seem to be having, though, is that it only rings when it feels like it. Maybe it gets tired or a little bit emotional, I don't know. But of the calls I received today, only half of those actually rang on the iPhone. The others went straight to voicemail. Curious is anyone else is having this problem...

THIRD DAY UPDATE:

Why in evil hell does the iPhone not synch Notes with your Mac? I can probably figure out how to reroute the Space Shuttle with this thing, but syching notes? Nope. That's just too much. Yes, I can email the notes to myself and then transfer them to the Mac that way, but that seems really counter-intuitive, especially for an Apple product. I had really hoped this feature would have been improved upon from the iPod.

Am I still madly in love with this thing? You bet. But there's still those few little things that just get on my nerves.