At the Soho Apple Store on Sunday, they turned away at least two hundred people who had been waiting in line because they had TWO phones in stock before the store opened. But this showed up as "in stock" on the website.

And yes, I am sending this on my first generation iPhone.

Sorry, I wish I had [taken photos], especially of the starbucks toting d-bag of a store manager pecking away at a Blackberry.

(Photo by ycr)

From a would-be iPhone 3G buyer in San Francisco:

Date: Jul 18, 2008 9:00 PM
Subject: apple store can kiss my ass

so i go to the chestnut street apple store at 10am this morning and they tell me they are sold out of 3g iphones after i checked their website last night. i'm like, how did you sell out at 10:01 am? and they said, we've been open for an hour! eh? their phone and website clearly details they open at 10am. wtf is going on? i felt like slaughtering them.

(Photo by Alex Choi)

A tipster snapped this late-night shot of Apple's Union Square store being overhauled. You — yes, you waiting in line with your old iPhone — send us photos of the results when the store opens at 10, willya? Separately, we've been told that Apple Store employees at the San Francisco flagship cut off would-be buyers who arrived after 5:30 p.m. Shoppers timed the morning line at 2.5 hours yesterday. That's even more time than I spend watching my BlackBerry reboot.

TIM THE IT GUY — Even an Apple Store employee called Friday's iPhone launch "Not very Apple-like". It would've been a lot shinier had Apple stuck to releasing only one complicated product at a time. But no, some marketing whiz decided to debut an all-new phone and upgrade the old phones on the same day. On top of that, Apple unveiled an applications store and also forced users of Apple's $99-a-year online email and sync .Mac accounts to self-migrate to a completely different platform — whether or not they were buying an iPhone. Here's why compared to previous Apple launches, Friday was one big mistake:

Unike most Apple products, none of Friday's new toys were simple retail boxes to be sold over the counter. Each required its own special technical prep -– carrier activation, a software upgrade, or a self-migration process. Apple failed Change Management 101: They scheduled too many logistics and IT changes for the same day, with each change performed before anxious customers' eyes. Any one of Friday's problems would've been defendable on its own. Instead, it seemed as if Apple were trying to disable as many customers as possible.

You never go into McDonald's and find they've got a new burger, plus an upgrade to the Quarter Pounder, plus a whole new kind of sugary drink all debuting on the same day. Mickey D's sticks to one rollout risk at a time, and lets everyone else get their Big Mac as usual. That's what added insult to injury: Apple's stores, nearly empty because they could handle only a few iPhone buyers at a time, were closed to customers who'd come to buy a laptop.

When the next-generation iPhone comes out, I hope they put aside the other new goodies for later. Release one change per week as a separate launch. That's what's frustrating: Friday's four-way fiasco could have been a month's worth of buzz.

(Photoillustration by Jackson West)

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster — whose numbers you should take with a grain of salt as he incorrectly estimated Apple only sold 425,000 3G iPhones over the weekend — credited international availability and a 60 percent price cut for the 300 percent increase. Sales would have been even brisker, Munster noted, if it hadn't taken Apple 15 minutes to activate each iPhone. Last year it took only about 60 seconds.

We know at least two people who won't complain about the 14 minute delay: Apple store employee Teresa Wlasiuk and vegan activist Daniel Bowman Simon. He's the guy who began waiting in line at New York's Fifth Avenue Apple store on July 4th in order to buy the first two iPhones sold on July 11. She's the girl he asked on a date during the process.

I can't get over the sheer insanity of people when it comes to the new iPhone. There were people lined up outside the AT&T store last night. Today, the lineup in front of the Walnut Creek Apple Store is a block and a half long. Come on people, have you nothing better to do that stand in line for an cell phone? It's not like Apple is only going to make 500 of them and you want to get your very own framed limited edition. That aside, the most insane thing is Apple. I had to go pick up a headset for the newly added handsfree law in Cali and the Apple store was nearby. I went to the head of the line assuming they are servicing the insane separately only to be told that the store is CLOSED for all non-iPhone purchases! I could not believe my ears. I could have needed my laptop fixed under ProCare for all they knew or could have been going to buy 3 new laptops for the office. I am sure some bean counter at Apple determined they could technically move more $s if they moved more iPhones today but clearly didn't think that there might be sane and loyal customers that might not want to stand inline for a cell phone.

I hear this and it sounds familiar; A group of vegan activists began waiting in line a few days ago as a demonstration. The cute girl goes on: "Anyway, they all own Apple stock and he taught English in Japan for four years. He's a nut, but I like nuts." The guy: "You could do much better." People who wait hours in line for a phone: Odd. People who wait days in line for a phone, hitting on a cute Apple Store employee the whole time, eventually asking her out and getting a date for next Tuesday: Not so odd. Actually: kind of heroic.

Update: We have names and video. She's Teresa Wlasiuk and he's Daniel Bowman Simon. Here's how it went down (doesn't her giggle give it all away?):

End of the line barely past H&M just before the doors opened and they might have to wait longer for an activation than it takes to get in the store.

Ironic justice is a rich, white man sleeping in a tent in Downtown San Francisco.

Robert Scoble: "Are you going to high-five on the way out of the store? That's how I got on the cover of the San Jose Mercury News."

Nothing to see here, please move along.

The creepy clapping thing begins amongst the Apple Store drones.

The first batch of lemmings enter the store, with no shouts of "Woo, GPS! And 3G! Or whatever! I'm a rock star!" More photos of the line from the Flickr-spotters at SFist.

Almost 5'4" Book Trailer - For more funny videos, click here

Apple points to the obvious advantages of shopping online, such as being continuously open for business 24/7, allowing consumers to quickly use search functions to find multiple items and of course the best of all, never having to leave the house to shop.

As a former Apple Retail employee, this jibes with what I experienced. At my store, there were only a few full-time employees and most of us were part-time — mostly so Apple wouldn't have to pay us any benefits. That's right: Steve Jobs is a cheapskate. Even Starbucks gives part-time baristas health insurance. At least I got a discount — and a free iPod. Who needs healthcare?

(Photo by AP/Elise Amendola)

Apple has enough MacBook Airs to give away to celebrities, but not enough to put one in each Apple Store — or even the flagships, like the big store at One Stockton Street? Such is the confidence Jobs has in the Apple brand: Would-be purchasers had to buy this mystical laptop sight unseen.

On the day of the iPhone launch, Zooomr founder Kris Tate was waiting in line with everybody else. A cute young girl was talking to the guys there and asked Kris what he did. He said he was a successful entrepreneur who ran a popular photo website (pointing to the Zooomr stickers that were stuck everywhere). Jokingly, she asked him how much he was worth and he told her that he is worth "around $3M". Very ironic considering what happened next.

Stats culled from Thursday's City Star report:

• Opening date: "as early as this spring"
• Size: 6,600 square feet
• Exterior finish: Unknown. City planners "kind of asked them to tone it down" with the steel panels. NYC architects Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, who designed New York's glass cube 5th Avenue store, will present a more Marina-centric design to the Planning Commission on March 22.

Sure, sure, seethe at their self-righteousness. But come on, what matters more day-to-day: a couple of executed Chinese bloggers, or putting your kick-ass pop mix onto your friend's iPod?

Anti-DRM Protest in San Francisco [Ebb and Flow blog]