People started lining up at the Apple Store in downtown Palo Alto two days ago and it's grown to a full block long with about 200 people. To me this is a fascinating cultural phenomenon. One interesting element is how small startups are seizing on this to promote their own companies. I heard two dot-commers do a biz dev deal in line where one company is giving away iPhones and asked another to be a sponsor and actually pay for one of the two phones...handshake, deal done.
My hope is that Steve Jobs won't pull a Nintendo-Wii on us and will have enough of these babies in stock to satisfy the masses.
There's plenty of hype around this launch, it's been orchestrated beautifully, and there are plenty of critics...I think the reality will come out somewhere in the middle as to how much of a watershed event this will wind up being. Ultimately, my sense is this will be remembered as the point when Mobile really emerged as a platform for consumer applications.
Here's a fun picture of me with the Mega iPhone:
