Thanks to the subsidizing that AT&T decided to do for the new iPhone 3G, my friends at PropertyQube weren’t able to actually send me a physical iPhone as part of the contest I won.  For the new iPhone, AT&T requires a photo ID, SSN #, credit check, and an AT&T service plan to buy one.  Thus, I had the pleasure of attempting to acquire one the (some might argue) more enjoyable way:  Constantly on the lookout for a new shipment, followed by standing in line.

Today was a particularly good day for the standing in line waiting part, especially at the local Apple Store at the Biltmore.  For those not intimately familiar with Phoenix, the Biltmore is a pleasant outdoor mall, with many high end retailers in the Camelback Corridor of mid-town Phoenix.  What made today particularly special was the combination of 110 degree heat with the 28% humidity.  For some reason, my car’s normally accurate temperature gauge was actually showing 115!

But I’m not complaining, as the wait was worth it.  2 hrs and 15 minutes of waiting in line, resulted in a 15 minute purchasing experience, and I walked out of the Apple store today at 3:30pm with an activated iPhone in hand.

Upon purchase I had to rush off to a photo shoot for a rental home in Mesa, and thus I haven’t had the opportunity to spend much quality time alone with it.  So far, the experience has been positive.  I was able to send a tweet via Twitter; updated my location via BrightKite; read the day’s email and replied to a few messages; mapped my location with the GPS supported Google Maps; read some text messages, though haven’t sent any (thus, still a text message sending virgin); took a couple of quick pictures; viewed this blog on the iPhone’s Safari browser, prompting me to want to have an iPhone version; and managed to nearly drain the battery dead off the initial charge.  Oh, and since it’s a phone I did make a couple of calls (with 2 dropped calls already…thank you AT&T).

What I haven’t done yet is send a picture to anyone, particularly to Twitter via TwitPic or BrightKite.  I’ll annoy my Twitter friends with that later.  And I haven’t connected to iTunes to download anything from the App Store.  That will have to wait until I get home, as my home computer makes the most sense to be the iTunes connection source, with the 4500 songs I already have there.

Anyway, this post was really just to give thanks to PropertyQube for hooking me up.  I’m already feeling far more connected to the world after just a few hours with the iPhone in hand, and am looking forward to finding new and creative ways to use this new tool to accomplish yet to be dreamed of things in support of real estate.

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