Yippee, I am a proud new owner of an iPhone 3G.  The second generation iPhone’s were released on July 11th starting at 8:00 local time.  When the first iPhone was released just over a year ago, the lines wrapped around the buildings and there was not enough supply for the demand (Yes, a lot of very unhappy people those first few weeks).

I decided that I’d go to the AT&T store in Parole, MD.  This store is just a mile or so from the Annapolis Mall.  I’d guessed that most people who might camp out would go to the mall as it has an Apple store and an AT&T store (double the chances to get a phone).  Thursday evening around 18:00, I stopped into the store to see if a line was forming and also to work with Petra on choosing her new phone.  Yes, I did not think I’d get away with a new phone without her also getting something :)  There was a couple who arrived while we were in the store and started setting up camp.  They were going to get phones #1 and #2.

I’ve got to say that I was excited about getting the iPhone.  Petra was also caught up in the hype.  She drove back by the store at midnight and reported back that there were now three people out front.  I had this gut feeling that I needed to get there earlier so I adjusted my plans and got up at 04:00.  If you know me, that’s not normal under any circumstances.  I arrived at the store around 4:40 and was shopper #8.

The AT&T employees started arriving at 06:00.  They started asking questions and filling out paperwork.  I was assigned phone #12.  I wanted and got a 16GB Black model. They announced a last minute change to policy - one phone per person present.

By 06:30 they had assigned all of the 16GB models and by 07:00 their whole stock was assigned.  It sounded like they only and 40 or so phones.  People kept arriving and were quite upset that they were all gone and the store had not even opened yet.  At 08:00 they opened up the doors and I was part of the first group of 10 families.  I ported my cell phone number from Sprint, picked the phone that Petra wanted and was out of the store by 08:30 owning one of the first iPhone 3Gs.

Yes, I went strait home, started syncing it with iTunes to complete the activation process and then downloaded the first two of many new applications from the store.