The iPhone is a consumer device. Has been marketed as one since day one.

Business users were never the target audience.

Manhattan Beach Apple store sold out their entire stock of the 8GB phones by 10:05 Saturday morning.

Not sure what the product mix was between 4GB and 8GB.

AT&T has imploded over the volume of sales, with delays of up to 24 hours in activating the phones of folks I know. Not only did they put everybody in India on it, but they put in extra staff and shifts throughout North America to handle it and failed to cope with the demand. This is not going to reflect well on AT&T.

(And by the way, apparently AT&T made a last minute corporate decision to force purchasers of iPhones to buy a $60-70 accessory kit. Talk about adding insult to injury.) There is going to be a lot of business press analysis on this adventure.

Was this a corporate decision or a store-by-store basis?

I don't know the store structure, but one of my sales guys used to sell cellphones and confirmed from his friends that it was "ATT policy."

Gizmodo has picked up the story with reports from So Cal and Seattle stores forcing the additional purchase.

Big storms are brewing on forums for ATT user and Mac users.

http://forums.wireless.att.com/cng/board/message?board.id=apple&thread.id=278

this from a friend:

"The newly-opened iPhone board on Apple's discussion group has a thread that has broken every record I've ever seen.

In only 24 hours, the thread "Your Activation Requires Additional Time to Complete"

has had 29,983 views of its 746 entries!"

try figuring out what your current phone costs...and make sure you compare apples to apples

persons with bad credit can buy the phone from Apple, and use it as a pre-pay...so no contract. But this method would be more $$$ down the line, however no fees for early termination should you decide the phone it not up to the hype.

here is my source Wayne.

http://news.techwhack.com/6058/apple-iphone-contract/

that woman in the video sure is a dumba$$, walking around flashing 100K in cash in everyone's face.

;)

That woman was a major bint.