The Apple iPhone has been a constant source of conversation at my house since the first announcement was made. Mind you, it’s mostly a one-way conversation. My husband, Matt, is an avid Apple user. He has owned multiple Macs over the years and constantly tells me how Apple is superior to PC. He will venture to use my Dell on rare occasion — when I’ve already turned it on and he just wants to check his Fantasy players. For the most part, he is a true Mac addict.

When the release date was finally announced for the iPhone, he made up his mind he wanted one. I was not going to stand in line for hours with the kids waiting for one of these suckers. Nor was I doing a road trip like Angela to get her iPhone. So, we waited a few days to see how the supply was in the area. For the first few days, most places remained sold out. Not knowing how soon shipments would reach our local stores, I went ahead and placed an online order through Apple which had a ship date of 2 - 4 weeks.

Matt continued calling the local Apple stores daily. Most sold out within an hour or two of opening throughout the first week. Yesterday, however, the Apple store at the Florida Mall said they had many in stock. Not just a few, but many of both 4Gig and 8Gig models. Matt called the store again — just to be sure. He spoke with a 2nd person who said the same thing. So, we made the drive to the Mall to get the iPhone in person rather than wait the 2 weeks for it to ship.

We got to the Apple store and went to the counter where they were handling the iPhone sales. The guy there says “Oh, we only have 8Gig iPhones in stock. Sorry.” Now, maybe it’s just me. But, I firmly believe the salespeople said they had 4Gigs knowing folks would come in for that and would buy the larger 8Gig so they didn’t walk away with nothing. To me it felt like upselling through deception.

Anyhow, we went ahead and got the 8Gig — so we didn’t waste the trip down there. Matt came home and logged on to his iTunes account. Within minutes, the iPhone was activated and his number was transferred from his old cell phone to the iPhone. Our cell phone service is already with Cingular (the new AT&T, whatever they call themselves now) so the charges are only an additional $20 per month.

We were at a friends for a little while last night and he was able to connect to their local network pretty quickly. He tried the Edge, but was disappointed with the speed. I’ve found several articles saying the same: Mobile Magazine, Mac News Network, Information Week. The phone quality also sounded a bit distant on both ends, but that could have been the connection. Other than that, it seems to be everything as advertised.

He was up late last night enjoying the new features and deciding what TV shows to transfer from his computer. And of course, I got to see the touch screen navigation through photo slide shows, enlarging webpages, scrolling email and the other things Apple built into this gadget. I still don’t get the hype. Maybe I’m missing something or maybe I haven’t looked closely enough at it to truly get it. But, since he’s happy - I’m happy. And that’s what matters most.

Tags: Gadgets, iPhone