I arrived at the AT&T Store at Cypress Creek & Andrews Ave. in Fort Lauderdale at around noon. There were already 6 people ahead of me in line. Unfortunately I didn’t come prepared with a chair like a lot of people did, so it was pretty uncomfortable waiting there for 6 hours.
More people started arriving around 3PM, and by the time they reopened there were about 40 people waiting.
At 4PM they pulled down the shades and locked the door. Finally at 6PM they raised the shades and opened the door. They let in 15 people at a time and the crowd was very orderly.
It took me less than 10 minutes to buy the iPhone, since I’m already a Cingular customer. The salesman just looked up my account and gave me an unopened box. Unlike most other phones, they didn’t have to activate it in the store.
When I got it home, I simply connected it to my MacBook Pro and iTunes launched and asked me to activate my iPhone.
The phone was activated in less than 5 minutes while it synced my music, videos, contacts, calendars, photos, and bookmarks. The phone was fully charged when I got it, unlike most phones which need to charge for several hours, so I was able to use it right away.
I found the onscreen keyboard fairly easy to use, although I occasionally miss some letters near the edges. The sound quality is very clear, even with a weak signal.
I’ve posted a full gallery of both the waiting and unboxing here.