iphone

Our long national nightmare of waiting for the iPhone is over.

Downtown San Francisco is going to be one interesting place this evening, as the iPhone line outside Apple's store bumps up against the monthly Critical Mass ride.

Presumably, you're familiar with the iPhone. The lines in San Francisco awaiting the 6 p.m. launch might not be as deep as those outside the Fifth Avenue Apple store in New York, but at last check people were lined up along two city blocks.

At 5:30 p.m., just down Market Street in Justin Herman Plaza, the monthly gathering of bicyclists known as Critical Mass will kick off. Critical Mass … Read more

You have to feel a little sorry for the Free Software Foundation, which launched the first overhaul of its General Public License (GPL) in 16 years on the same day that Apple's iPhone launch hogged the spotlight.

But the foundation, like everybody and his brother, couldn't resist looking for a piece of the iPhone action. It used the launch as an opportunity to preach the merits of its new license and raise the specter that Apple's iPhone will violate it.

"We know that Apple has built its operating system, OS X, and its Web browser, Safari, … Read more

Continuing my series of unedited, incoherent clips from the iPhone launch in NYC that were taped with a pocket-size Canon point-and-shoot, here is a little clip of the most popular person on the block (the Starbucks employee handing out free coffee) and the second most popular person on the block (New York Times tech columnist David Pogue, talking to fans).

Also being handed out: Evian water and Godiva chocolate. This liveblogger is happy!

When I was a young college student, I camped out overnight with friends in a parking lot outside Tower Records (remember them?) to buy tickets for The Who's 25th anniversary tour. This was the summer of 1989, and the Internet was a university research tool--I didn't log on to send my first e-mail for another year, and back then I only had one friend to communicate with! To get decent seats (or, sometimes, to get any seats) for a popular show back then, you either had to wait in line outside the nearest Ticketmaster outfit, or call the … Read more

Paul Kedrosky in the Wall Street Journal knows why people are excited about the iPhone.

He says it's not that Apple has slowly allowed little tidbits of information about the device to come out.

I am hard-pressed to think of a single material feature in the product that wasn't announced six months ago, right down to the nifty new way you can scroll through songs.

Actually, the Macalope can think of two without even going to the iPhone product page: the 8-hour battery life and the YouTube player, so there might be some merit to the slow bleed … Read more

There's just over an hour to go until the iPhone launch, and I got up on a stepladder (precarious, considering the crowds that could knock you off at any second) in order to survey the scene. Nothing particularly chaotic, but yeah, it's a lot of people.

The guy in line next to where I'm sitting is on his cell phone, telling a friend that "it's crazy...it's absolutely crazy." He got here about 6 AM today and is at position #110 in line.

People are starting to buzz on whether or not Steve … Read more

AT&T says it has spent an additional $50 million in the months leading up to the iPhone launch to upgrade and add more capacity to its 2.5G EDGE network, but a company official said that subscribers shouldn't expect to surf the mobile Net any faster.

"We don't want to set unrealistic expectations," said Mark Siegel, a spokesman for AT&T. "We have been upgrading the network on an ongoing basis, and we've made an additional investment in anticipation of demand for the iPhone."

AT&T has spent over $… Read more

Europeans are going to have to wait for their iPhone until later this year, but good things might be coming to those who wait.

Newswireless.net reported Friday (thanks Engadget) that Apple will announce on Monday the European carriers it has chosen for the launch of the iPhone across the pond. Vodafone, T-Mobile and Carphone Warehouse will be named as Apple's launch partners, according to Newswireless.net, and they will have a faster 3G phone to offer their customers.

The EDGE network used for the iPhone in the U.S. is probably the most widely cited problem with Apple'… Read more