Rather than wait in line here for an iPhone (it's 110+ here in Phoenix today)....I'm doing so virtually with Robert Scoble and others at the Palo Alto Apple store via UStream.tv.
As of 4:20PM Thursday Pacific Time, there are 248...scratch that 251...I mean 256....uh, 267....no 273 people....ugh, I give up....the number of people virtually lined up at this time is 270+. I wonder how high this is going to get? The audio is a bit rough, but for some reason I'm having too much fun watching.
Wow, 344 viewers as of 4:28. Ugh, it's 30 seconds later and not there are 360+. This is something else. Hope the UStream.tv servers hold up!
As of 4:53PM, Robert says there are about 35 people in line.
I'm guessing they're plugged in?? Or someone is re-charging their batteries??
As of 5PM the video keeps dropping although the audio seems to stay on most of the time. Evidently they are using the WiFi from the Apple store and a shoe store next door is providing power. I wonder if that'll last through the night.
Update: 10:02PM. Bill Atkinson is camping out at the Palo Alto Apple store too, waiting for his iPhone. Number 73 in line. He's been talking about topics ranging from Bayesian programming to fine art photography to the early days of Mac development and trying to determine which way the arrows should be on each end of the scroll bar. Here's the video stream.

10:50PM. Wow. That was an amazing conversation with Bill Atkinson and a couple others--a few that I think said had also worked at General Magic--an early handheld-focused computing company co-founded by Bill. Hopefully Robert Scoble will fill in some of the names I missed with a post on his blog. Lots of talk about photography, his favorite places to take photographs (the Olympic Peninsula), what type of digital camera he uses, and more.
6:45AM Friday. Tomas Hawk is broadcasting live from the Apple line at Palo Alto. I see that 347 others are watching the stream as of now too. The video was awesome to watch last night--there was quite a bit of babbling, however, there were gems, such as the conversation with Bill Atkinson. I wonder what might go on today in line.
I see that tech reporter Steve Goldman is waiting in the CNBC truck, preparing for a CNBC report he's going to do at 8AM (I presume Pacific time).

(By the way, you can join the Zooomr chat with Thomas Hawk, Robert Scoble and others in line at http://ustream.tv/channel/zooomr-tv.)
Bill Atkinson is back on the video stream this morning. He's showing off a fake iPhone he made the day of Jobs' original keynote announcement about the iPhone. He says some of his photos are going to be on the iPhone.

Now he's talking about photography. He says he takes about a 100 photos to get one good one and that if he's not throwing away 100 or so photos to get a good one, then he's not taking enough photos. Digital photography makes this possible for the amateur.


Incremental Blogger