iPhone Day

The scene (left) at the ATT store in downtown Washington, D.C., this morning was similar to that at other ATT and Apple stores across the nation this morning - lines of people waiting to buy Apple’s new iPhone 3G.  

Apple has intentionally kept the iPhone off the market for the last month, both to build near-hysterical customer demand and media frenzy, and to eliminate the previous problem of people taking advantage of the company’s liberal 30 day money back refund to trade-in an older model.  Smart and gutsy corporate move by Apple on both counts.

As a typical Apple enthusiast, I was online earlier this morning to download the iPhone 2.0 software update, which gives my earlier generation iPhone just about all the bells and whistles as the new 3G model … except better wireless speed.  My iPhone uses ATT’s ancient EDGE network that delivers about 70k, akin to old-fashioned dial-up speed.  The new iPhone 3G is supposed to be about three times faster but even that doesn’t set the world on fire.  At the risk of sounding less than “WOWed,” I am less than WOWed by the new software features.  I will leave reviews to the professionals but I thought … (yawn) it was considerably less than what I had expected.  

Sorry, Apple … but I still love you.