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I've never lined up early for something before today, well not really, I mean I've waited to get into restaurants, movies and amusement park rides, but nothing like this. So, prior to today I had sent an email out to a few people I knew who were thinking of getting an iPhone, seeing if anyone wanted to join me in the waiting game this morning. Most people said no, but one friend said that he'd join me. Unfortunately (for me) on Thursday night he backed out, saying he had something else to do. At that point, I wasn't sure if I was going to bother going alone or not. I watched the eleven o'clock news to see how many people had queued up already to get a feel for whether or not it was worth it to go the next morning. It didn't look like a whole lot of people were there so I decided that I'd get up early and head down to have a look.

I set my alarm for 0600, but was up by 0530 and out the door before 0600. It was a bit wet out, having rained over night and I thought this would help my chances of being in a decent place in line. I drove downtown and cruised by the Rogers store on Bank St - the one that was supposed to open early at 0800. There seemed to be a decent lineup, but I parked the car and added myself to the end of the line.

A few minutes into my wait, I heard one of the Rogers reps talking to a guy ahead of me in line (quite a ways ahead of me actually) saying that they only had 8 GB models available. I clarified with him after he was done talking to the rep and he informed me that the 16 GB models (13 or 14 of them) had been snapped up by the first people in line. I thanked him for the info and headed back to my car. Oh - I forgot to mention, I'd guess there was about 70 people waiting when I left. I got back to the car at around 0640 and made my way back to the Queensway. I decided that I'd stop into the store in the Kanata Centrum strip mall on my way home to see what was going on there.

When I pulled up, there was one guy sitting on the ground, so I parked the car and decided to join him. Funny thing is that if there hadn't been anybody, I probably would have just gone home. Anyways, this was around 0700 or so and he had just got there about 5 minutes before me. I pulled out my chair and sat down next to him. We chatted for a bit and before long a third guy had joined us. While we were sitting there, a woman in a van drove up, rolled down her window and asked if we were iPhone fans. Turns out this was her store and she informed us that we'd get the phones we were looking for (specifically the 16 GB models). We tried to get her to open up early but she said she wasn't allowed. :)

A forth guy joined us shortly after the third guy, and it was just the 4 of us for quite a while. We chatted quite a bit, about iPhones, and all sorts of other stuff. Turns out the 4th guy (a young guy just out of school) was working for a startup here in Ottawa that is working on video overlays. I wish I could remember the name of the company and what their website was - it sounded like pretty cool stuff. Anyways, this guy was a developer who was doing their flash work for them. A nice guy for sure.

At 1000 on the nose they opened the store and let the first 5 of us in. From that point forward, it was complete chaos - nothing was working (on the rogers end) and there were lots of people (myself included) just sitting around waiting while the staff at the store attempted to do whatever they could online or on the phone. They took info from lots of people and actually managed to get a couple of people (new subscribers only) through while the rest of us waited. I was inside the store from 1000 until just before 1300 with not much happening for me except that I lost my data connection on my BB. They (the store) did order up some pizza for lunch for everyone which was nice. Anyways, just before 1300 the guy told me that I was 'sort of' ready to go. He explained that he hadn't been able to add the data plan and also mentioned how the iTunes Store (used to activate the phone) was pretty much down. He suggested I try tomorrow. He also said that I'd need a new SIM card since my current SIM card didn't support 3G. There was a SIM card already in the iPhone.

I went home, plugged the iPhone into my mac and got the same iTunes error that everyone else was seeing. I kept retrying (by clicking over to Music and then back to iPhone) while I was doing other stuff. I decided to see if it was possible to do anything with the phone without it being activated. Turns out I was able to do pretty much everything (except make calls or sync anything) so I installed a few apps from the App Store. I had to do this directly from the phone (using WiFi), not through iTunes since iTunes wasn't able to talk to my phone yet. I installed the Remote app that Apple put out and was VERY impressed with it. It is exactly what I wanted to be able to control iTunes on my iMac while it pumps out tunes to my remote speakers connected to my Airport Express. I also installed ShoZu, Twitterific, and Truphone - although I still haven't been able to try out Truphone. Very impressed with ShoZu and Twitterific though.

Eventually the 'activation' of the iPhone succeeded which meant I was then able to sync stuff to the phone. I was still not getting any signal from Rogers. In fact, even now, after 2230 I've still got no signal. I did call the store before they closed but only got voicemail so I'll give it until tomorrow afternoon and then I'll call the store back.

I've played with the phone now for a while and am very impressed with it. I definitely need to get a game or two for it though, I'm thinking Super Monkey Ball may be the way to go for now. I also noted that Bejeweled 2 is available so that is a possibility too. Anyways, it was quite an experience today - one that I'd rather not repeat again for a while, the part in the store I mean...waiting in line wasn't that bad. :)

One interesting thing I noted was that my iPhone seemed to think it was in Singapore. I'm guessing that the GPS inside needs a starting point from a cell tower (assisted GPS) or else I just didn't leave it outside long enough. Anyways, since I've got no signal from Rogers yet it has no reference point to start from and as such it thinks it's still in Singapore. :)