I didn't camp out or wait in line. Once the madness died down, I just walked into the Apple Store in Hingham, strolled up to the counter and bought an iPhone. They seem to have plenty.

First impressions: The interface is simple and easy to use. For some, it may be too simple, especially if, like me, you're used to right-clicking into properties and tweaking everything. There's not a lot of that available. But it's a phone, after all, not a computer.

The display and touch-screen are downright amazing. Having fat fingers, I was concerned that the keyboard would be hard to use, but not so. One day in, I can type about half as fast as I can on a Blackberry (I couldn't type at all on the small Treo keyboard). Punctuation is a little quirky but that may be because I'm used to the auto-punctuation on the Blackberry.

I was an existing AT&T / Cingular account holder so activation through iTunes was quick and easy. They just switched my number from my old phone to the iPhone.

The slowness of the EDGE network that I had heard about didn't seem to be a big issue. I experimented a little with web browsing and, although not as fast as wi-fi, it was better than merely useable. The ability to zoom into web pages is critical and I found that most pages were easy to read. Selecting links in lists was problematic (fat fingers again) but in-line links are easier. Some sites (the Herald, for instance) automatically detect that you're using a mobile device and serve up a simple, one column page. That's fine if you're using a Blackberry or other mobile browser but with the iPhone's full-browser capabilities, you don't get full content.

I haven't explored all the features yet, but despite expecting to be disappointed (see iHype), first impressions are overwhelming positive.

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