A Third Place to Buy an iPhone  At Least in the U.S.

Best Buy is a huge electronic retailer in the United States, with hundreds of yellow-tagged big-box stores all across the country. Beginning on Sept. 7, it'll also be a retail outlet for the Apple iPhone 3G.I've long been impressed with Best Buy's coverage of the Apple product line. From iMacs to MacBooks, from iPods to accessories, the stores seem to be well-stocked and the sales staff is fairly knowledgeable.

Until now, the only major consumer-electronics product from Apple that you couldn't get at Best Buy is the iPhone. That's changing, and that's good news for people tired of standing in line to get their phone at an Apple store, or who don't want to go to an AT&T store.

What you're not going to get at Best Buy is a discount from the $199 price for the 8GB model or $399 for the 16GB model. While Best Buy often discounts other brands, it  like most retailers  charges full price for just about every Apple product.

According to the company, all Best Buy stores sell the iPod, and more than 600 Best Buy stores nationwide carry Apple's computers. It is unclear if every Best Buy store will sell the iPhone 3G, or if it'll just be the Mac-equipped ones.

It's also unknown if Best Buy has any sort of exclusive retailer deal with Apple to carry the iPhone. My queries to both Best Buy and Apple were unanswered.

Given the terms of Apple's contract with AT&T, it will be interesting to see how long it takes for Apple to let other retailers offer the iPhone 3G as well. Walmart, anyone?