I had a great time videotaping the launch of the iPhone 3G on Friday at Apple's big "glass house" store on 59th Street in New York City. The fanfolk were friendly, famed CBS news analyst Jeff Greenfield was gracious, and the Apple public relations woman was, er, just as peachy nice as one would expect (watch the end of my three-minute video to see).I arrived at the store about an hour before its scheduled 8 a.m. opening, and it was already a mob scene. The line of stretched all the way around the block. Interestingly, a little investigation confirmed the fact that this was more of a flash mob than a crowd which had camped out for days. Unlike at the launch of the first iPhone a year ago, almost no one had been on-station the night before.

Also, nearly everyone I talked to has bought into the idea that the iPhone 3G is way faster than the existing model. My quibble with this is, it means they don't understand that AT&T's 3G coverage is spotty once you venture away from major metropolitan areas. Of course, since the Apple Store in midtown Manhattan is about as major metropolitan as you can get, these folks probably have less to be concerned about than customers in South Dakota.

The other interesting data point is that no one seemed concerned about the scant battery life of the iPhone 3G. Me, I remain pretty unhappy with the battery life of my first-generation iPhone. The fact that the 3G model has even less talk time on a charge makes me reluctant to upgrade.

Anyway, this video is presented as a humorous commentary on the iPhone 3G scene. Check it out, and please leave your comments below or e-mail them to me directly at alex@alexwolfe.net.

(Here's the same clip, but the YouTube version.)

To watch a higher-quality version of this clip, click here (and click on "watch in higher quality" at the bottom right of the YouTube player).

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