Below The Beltway

Apple and AT&T stores across the country were busy last night as Apple’s much-hyped iPhone went on sale for the first time:

Stephen Easley was the first person to emerge from the Apple Store in Clarendon, and a dozen television cameras trained on his new iPhone.

In his haste, he ripped open the package, and the phone he waited 20 hours to buy nearly bounced out of his hands and onto the concrete.

“Oh, my God,” a woman gasped. “He almost dropped it!”

The iPhone hit shelves last night at Apple and AT&T stores across the country, after months of mystique and secrecy that even kept store managers in the dark about the logistics of the sale. The most ardent customers waited out hours of heat and rain, sometimes by the handful and in some cases by the hundreds, for a chance to be among the first to shell out $500 to $600 for the device.

Some said they expected the phone to change their lives. Others said they just wanted bragging rights over less-patient friends. Many were hoping to resell at a steep markup.

Just before opening time at the Apple Store in Tysons Corner, a line of some 200 people snaked out the door, through the mall and onto the sidewalk.

You’ve got to hand it to Steve Jobs and the rest of the guys at Apple, everytime they have a major product debut they manage to do it in a way that generates a ton of free publicity. Local television channels were at the malls interviewing people in line. Newspapers posted detailed reviews. And, of course, the iPhone is all over the blogosphere.

Brendan Loy stood in line in Tennessee and posted a review after playing with the iPhones at the Apple Store.

It sounds like an interesting, potentially cool, phone, but I think I’ll be resisting the hype for now. First of all, as Tim Wu Reynolds points out at Slate, the iPhone isn’t as revolutionary would make it to be because it suffers from the same defect that nearly every cell phone does:

Most obviously, the iPhone is locked, as is de rigueur in the wireless world. It will work only with one carrier, AT&T. Judged by the standards of a personal computer or electronics, that’s odd: Imagine buying a Dell that worked only with Comcast Internet access or a VCR that worked only with NBC. Despite the fact that the iPhone costs $500 or so, it cannot yet be brought over to T-Mobile or Verizon or Sprint. AT&T sees this as a feature, not a bug, as every new iPhone customer must commit to a two-year, $1,400 to $2,400 contract.

If Apple wanted to be “revolutionary,” it would sell an unlocked version of the iPhone that, like a computer, you could bring to the carrier of your choice. An even more radical device would be the “X Phone”—a phone on permanent roam that chose whatever network was providing the best service. Imagine, for example, using your iPhone to talk on Sprint because it had the best voice coverage in Alaska, while at the same time using Verizon’s 3G network for Internet access. Of course, getting that phone to market would be difficult, and Apple hasn’t tried.

I’m not even sure if something like that would be possible, but the fact that the iPhone is tied in to Cingular/AT&T is somewhat of a dealbreaker for me. I’ve been with Verizon Wireless for more than ten years now largely because, in this part of the country, they’ve got the better network. For example, if you’re underground on the D.C. Metro, you can use you’re Verizon cell phone. That’s not the case with Sprint or Cingular or anyone else.

So, I’m not willing to switch carriers right now just to get a phone that may or may not be revolutionary. Besides, I’ve just recently upgraded to the LG VX8300 and, though its not perfect, it’s working just fine for me.

It will be interesting to see whether the iPhone results in a significant uptick in subscribers for Cingular/AT&T. My guess is that, if it exists, it will be a small one.