iPhone mania, part 2.
Friday, July 11, 2008 - Launch day for the second generation iPhone. After my morning at the gym, I saunter over to the Apple Store on the way home just to check out the lines - not expecting to get one myself unless by some miracle there was a reasonably short line. The first store I checked was inside the South Coast Plaza - I think it's the largest, upscale mall in Orange County, CA. I think I got there after noon and was surprised to find the lines not horrendously long - maybe about 40 people. Not sure why - everyone seemed pretty relaxed - there were security guards and ushers around to keep things orderly. Inside the Apple Store itself, it was a bit sparse - looked like only people buying iPhones and not many who were browsing other products.
On the other hand, the line at the Irvine Spectrum was much longer - probably about 100 people. The night before, we happened to be at the Spectrum and saw about half a dozen people preparing to camp out. As I was walking from the parking garage to the shops, I passed two people who had iPhone bags - but they didn't look too excited. I realized from the news afterwards, that they probably couldn't activate their new iPhone 3G because of the system glitch at AT&T.
I'll probably get one and try the iPhone again, but I hear that Apple still hasn't figured out how to implement Copy & Paste function, much less select text to copy. Even with gestures and multi-point touch (or whatever the jargon is) - I think it's going to be difficult and counter intuitive to implement. I haven't heard about any KeyChain support either - which means usernames and passwords can't be stored. My passwords are difficult to type on the iPhone onscreen keyboard - because they contain numbers and other characters that require changing modes on the keyboard a few times. Ironic that the iPhone will actually encourage users to use simpler, less secure passwords.
Like many reviewers, I'm curious about the iPhone app store, though I heard many of them are not free. Oh well.
