The iPhone wait in Portland
Some things never change: Despite being a stranger in a foreign land (a San Franciscan in sales-tax-free Portland on business), despite only getting 4 hours of sleep and despite iPhone 1.0 waffling towards getting iPhone 3G, I found myself in line in front of the Apple Store at 7:00 a.m. in Portland, Oregon waiting for the new iPhone 3G. And, of course, I wasn't alone.
Can you see the line now? The line in front of the Portland Apple Store wraps around the Verzion booth.
(Credit: Kevin Ho on his old iPhone)My goal: the white 16-GB iPhone. Will I get it? Only time will tell. But like last year's wait in San Francisco, those earliest of the early adopters are primarily male, white and middle-aged. There are free bottles of water, coffee and random post cards of iPhone 3G literature. There are many folks who are toting their 1.0 iPhones too. But, unlike last year, I haven't been in line for more than an hour, there aren't people hawking their places in line for profit, and there aren't the throngs of media (apart from your loyal blogger). And, instead of a release time of 6:00 p.m., early adopters are being made to get up early to adopt their iPhone 3G, well, early on in the day. But like last year, there buzz, excitement, and all that buzz that Apple has been successful at creating, not quite the same as the original, but a more 2.0-like version.
Kevin Ho is a San Francisco attorney and the owner of a brand new iPhone. He'll be writing about the experience for the CNET Blog Network, and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. 
