Aybara

Exactly.

I was in line for about 2.5 hours. Granted the country's HUGE population centers (New York, San Fran, etc) had a MUCH larger turnout and much larger lines.

Some cities with only one Apple Store also had ridiculous lines. I heard that the four stores in Phoenix were all fairly mild.

I opted to wait in line. Got to the Apple Store at 2:30pm, and was like 63rd in line. I had a nice conversation with the people in line around me. Played a four-way game of Monopoly on an iPad, and it felt like in no time at all, I left with my iPad 2.

At my local store, at around 4pm-ish, they came out and asked each person in line what they wanted, gave them a ticket stating what they wanted to speed up the purchase process.

The people at the end who weren't given tickets knew they had pretty much a zero chance of getting one, but some stayed anyway. In case someone further up decided to NOT get one.

Honestly, it sounds like nit picking. Or someone who was mad that they ordered online and didn't get it soon enough.

1) No pre-orders. If it was due to supply limitations, this makes sense. It looks BAD to have a launch and then have no units available in store because everyone pre-ordered.

2) Availability Tracker. I thought it took a good week to get those in the past.

3) Lines. Popular products generate lines (Xbox, PlayStation, etc, etc etc)

4) Gray Market. Fact of life nowadays. Get in line earlier. ;)

5) Not keeping promises? If one person was able to get to the order page early, the thousands upon thousands of fanboys/girls obsessively pressing 'F5' did also. So it is obvious other people got to the page and finalized their orders first. As is evidenced by people seeing their online orders arriving earlier this week,

Correct me if I am wrong, but if this is going to be a CDMA Verizon iPhone, you can't make calls AND do data things at the same time still

My first iPhone 4 had the Death grip problem. But I don't hold my phone like that when making calls.

My biggest complaint was that flat on a table side-by-side with my wife's 3GS, my data rate simply stunk.

We picked four freebie apps that neither of us had. She was able to download all 4 over 3G before I could even finish ONE.

Went to the Genius Bar, explained my problems and showed them the video I took with my FlipHD. They swapped out the phone. Now I have no 3G data issues, and while I can replicate the Death Grip, it too seems less severe.

No kidding. $199/$299 is the contract price. A non-contract price is $599/$699. So wouldn't that mean that per phone, Apple is making a hefty profit?

Strange. My 3G iPad came with that option in the 'Off' position.

I would hope they would have SOME cases in store on the 3rd if they have some to ship out also.

Special Gift? For everyone in line, or only those who get there the Friday before?

I'm just trying to figure out why these chips thought 2010 was a leap year. The last one was in 2008, and when they happen every four years.....Who is doing the math here?