Long lines or not, I was intent on purchasing an iPhone the day it came out. Unfortunately, a customer service representative at the Salem AT&T store on Hawthorne said they sold out prior to 9 a.m. I received reports that the AT&T stores in Portland area had sold out within an hour or so of being on sale. I made some phone calls to the Apple stores in Portland and was told Pioneer Square's store would have a phone available for me. After about four hours in line, the staff reported that the registration servers were down and they couldn't sell any phones until the following day. They handled the situation well and gave everyone passes to skip ahead in line the next day. I chose the 16GB black version and the process of actually purchasing the phone took about 5 minutes.

In the past I've avoided the iPhone 1 because of the price and the lack of 3G service. When 3G was announced, I ditched my old cell phone plan and Blackberry Curve. I'm used to having email and Internet everywhere that I go. Sure, it was EDGE technology and slow, but it worked. So far the browsing and email experience on the iPhone is far superior to the Blackberry.

Touch screen

The biggest change from Blackberry to iPhone is the touch screen. Most functions work well with the touch screen right off the bat. The virtual keyboard will take some getting used to. Heavy text messagers will probably need a few days to become get used to it. I still find myself hitting the P key when I'm aiming for the O. But already it has gotten better, so it's just a matter of training yourself.

Battery life

Battery life is something to be concerned about, but it doesn't seem to be quite as bad as some reports were alleging. With heavy 3G-use, the battery will probably need to be charged every day. With push e-mail services, GPS, and music playing, you should probably keep a charger with you at all times.

Web browsing

Safari on the iPhone works well. Pages load quickly on the 3G network or WIFI. Being able to flip the phone from portrait to landscape and have the browser window move with you is a far easier reading experience. I find myself using portrait mode while navigating and landscape for reading. WIFI connectivity is easy to setup. The iPhone will prompt you if it sees a network available.

External speakers

The iPhone is, of course, also an iPod. Its music features are practically the same as an iPod. The Blackberry Curve has music features as well, but it can't compete with iPhone's user friendliness. The external speaker on the iPhone sounds almost as good as my Macbook speakers when playing music. Battery life is probably hurt even more when using the external speaker.

Some users of the first generation iPhone complained about volume control. In Steve Jobs' keynote he said that the volume problems have been resolved. From a voice quality standpoint, AT&T and the new iPhone are much better than T-Mobile and the Curve that I was using.

Applications

The App Store was released last week as well. It comes pre-installed on the 3G iPhone, but users of the original can get a software update. The App Store will probably get a lot of my money over the next few months. So far I haven't taken the plunge into buying Apps because there are still a lot of free ones that I can check out. Here are some of the free ones that stand out:

Pandora -

If you don't already use the customized radio station on your computer, stop reading this and go check out pandora.com. They've released an App for the iPhone that allows you to stream music from Pandora over your phone. From your phone you can give songs the "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" just like you can on your desktop.

Remote -

"Remote" sends information across the WIFI network to play/pause songs, change playlists, and control volume. This one you can't pass up if you have Apple TV. Plug your iTunes-equipped computer in to your house sound system. Bonus: You can freak out people when they walk by your computer.

Shazam -

Ever heard a song playing and wanted to know exactly what it was? Shazam can help. By default it records 12 seconds of the song playing and gives you the artist, song title, and album that it's on. Rudimentary tests were successful. It did have problems picking up "Beastie Boys" remixes, even with the words "Brass Monkey" showing up within the recording. But on less obscure songs, it was successful.

Urbanspoon -

This App randomly chooses a restaurant near you and gives you its address and how much scratch you'll have to give up to eat there. You shake the iphone and wheels spin like a slot machine and land on different restaurants near you. Unfortunately, Salem restaurants aren't included in the list. But the Portland metro area shows up with some good choices.

There are a number of self-explanatory apps that should be grabbed. AIM, Typepad, Facebook, and MySpace all have mobile versions of their services.

To organize the apps on your home screen, press and hold one of the icons and then all of them will begin shaking. From there you can tap the X on an App to remove it or tap and drag an icon to move it across your home screen.

The iPhone beats the Blackberry at every level. MobileMe might put Apple over the top, if they can get it stable. So far mixed reports are coming in about whether it's working or not. I signed up for the 60-day trial, but couldn't get any of the syncing to work. All in all, the iPhone still deserves its success.