I Survived the 3G IPhone Line of 2008!

It’s July 11th, which means thousands of AT&T and Apple stores around the US are working their way through the first day of sales for the new 3G iPhone.

I showed up at the local AT&T store at 7:15am and faced a line that wrapped around 3 sides of the relatively small building. I’d guess there were about 60 people ahead of me, most of which came after 5am according to the guys at the front.

16GB black phones ran out pretty quickly about 1/3rd of the line through, then the white ones went by the time they got to about 8 people in front of me.

The processing slowed to a crawl about halfway through, as the iTunes activation fell over and exploded about half-way through the line. When I finally got in, they were moving faster by doing all the AT&T paperwork in-store, then sending people home to do the iTunes activation, which is probably where most of the real hold-up is.

Because the 16GBs were gone, I settled with the 8GB, which I’ll use to see if that’s enough for day to day use. If not, I checked with the store that I can exchange it within 30 days for the 10% restocking fee plus $100 difference once the 16GBs come back in.

I got out of the store around 11:15.

When I got home, iTunes was down, which in light of having survived numerous other technology launch days, doesn’t really surprise me.

Mobile Internet and the Modern Family Road Trip

I’m currently typing away on my MacBook, connected to the Internet via a mobile EVDO connection that’s allowing me to surf the web at 65 miles per hour on the I-75 highway through Kentucky.

It’s kind of surreal to think about just how much has changed from the road trips of my youth, where our time spent in the family station wagon consisted of coloring books and games of calling out the states of license plates. I recall fondly trying to re-fold state highway maps before you miss your exit.

Now, however, I’m able to amuse myself by watching streamed television courtesy of Hulu, while the GPS automatically calls out directions to attactions, hotels and fuel stations.

I don’t even have to wait until I get home to have the film from my camera developed, as now I can take snapshots of interesting things I see along the way, then upload them to a photo hosting site like flickr or even just email them to friends and family directly.

Times have certainly changed, and I for one am enjoying it one digitally mobile mile at a time.

Text Messages are the Printer Ink of the Cell Phone Industry

DSLReports has an entry up where they do the math on just how much you’re really paying for those cell phone text messages, now that T-Mobile has joined other providers in charging 20 cents per message.

According to the math done by others, those 140 byte messages being sent at 20 cents each add up to $1,310 per megabyte. Considering that the average $20 USB flash drive these days is measure in gigabytes, and the average broadband Internet connection is measured in megabits per second, it’s amazing how much we pay per text message.

As for the reference in the title, it comes from articles on the idea that for the price you pay for the average inkjet printer cartridge, a gallon of printer ink would cost you over $5000.