Today, I stood in line for my first product release. People I know have stood in lines for game consoles, opening movie releases and the like… but I never have – until today.

Yes, I waited in line for 3 and a half hours for an iPhone, and I had a great time. I met 2 ACU students, a guy in the Air Force, and another guy that used to be in the Air Force (we never got around to what he does now)… but we all had something in common – a love for Macs. Turns out the Air Force guy was a collector of sorts, and has one of almost every generation of Mac since the Apple II… even a 20th Anniversary Mac (extremely rare). One of the ACU students was a CompSci major, and the other a PT major considering the PT doctorate program at HSU… and we all had an interest in Macs, so we all had a lot we could talk about. In short, I had a great time.

The iPhone is a marvel of engineering. It’s construction is impeccable, and it looks fantastic. Unfortunately, I can’t really speak for it’s functionality aside from the few minutes I spent playing with one in the AT&T store (which was awesome), because I haven’t been able to “activate” mine yet. I’m trying to move my number from T-Mobile, but my first attempt to do so came back with my number being “not eligible to be transferred.” So I’m trying again. Worst case, I’ll have to get a new number, and just deal with the multitude of problems caused by that. To AT&T’s credit, as far as I can tell it’s nothing AT&T has any control over - it’s T-Mobile’s prerogative to decide if my number can be transferred… which sucks… I’ll be pretty upset if I have to change my number.

So much I could’ve written about in the last few weeks…

EDIT: I think I might have figured out the number portability thing, though it will take several hours to test. After reading through a few FCC documents about wireless number portability (since it is federally mandated), I came across this statement:

“Wireless LNP (local number portability) allows consumers to switch from one wireless carrier to another within the same general metropolitan area. It does not allow consumers to keep the same phone number when moving to a new town or city.”

It just so happens that one of the fields in activation asks where (primarily) you will be using the iPhone… of course, I put Abilene - but my T-Mobile number is a registered Dallas/Ft. Worth area number… hmm… so in about 5 hours (or in the morning), when I get the email back from AT&T (that I expect will say) that the number isn’t portable, I’ll try yet again… this time not specifying Abilene as my location… we’ll see what happens and I’ll post the results. I realize most of the 4 or 5 of you that read my blog probably won’t find any of this information useful, but maybe it will help some other poor soul Googling the Internets with a similar problem.