Unless you are hiding under a rock, you know the iPhone 4 launched yesterday in the U.S. and a few other countries.

We went out to the Apple store yesterday but our creaking bones, arthritic limbs and crumbling body couldn’t stand the long line.

So after a quick breakfast of hash browns, orange juice and some oatmeal cookies at Mac we returned home from the mall.

This morning we called up Apple with no expectations that they would have the new iPhones in stock.

What a surprise to find that they did have them.

In no hurry, we took a leisurely drive over to the Apple store in the mall.

Hey, no line. Not a single soul outside the store except two State Troopers (cops) lazing around.

An Apple sales rep near the door quickly took us to a vacant desk and assisted with the purchase.

Since we were upgrading from our existing 3G iPhone and not porting from another carrier or adding a new line, the purchase process didn’t take long. It involved the usual May we see your Driver’s License, May we have the last four digits of the SSN and, of course, the crucial May we have your credit card.

We got the 16GB version ($200) since after two years we still had 10Gb space left in our old 16GB iPhone 3G.

In our not-so-humble opinion, the 16GB version should be good enough for most people.

Note to our non-U.S. readers: Don’t be deceived by the low $200 price tag for the iPhone 4. The $200 price means we MUST sign a two-year contract with AT&T forking out a minimum of $75 a month for the phone and unlimited data service. Text messages are extra (no, we didn’t sign up for that since we’re not into texting or IM).

Since the White Color iPhone 4G is still not available, it was really a Hobson’s Choice. Pick the Black iPhone 4 or keep moving.

Including the in-store activation of the new iPhone 4G, the whole process took about 10-12 minutes.

Except for the final activation using a Mac and iTunes our sales rep Chris did everything with a wireless iPod Touch with some special software and a credit card-reader attached to the bottom of the unit.

After the purchase, we lingered at the Apple Store for a considerable amount of time playing with the iPad, particularly with the iBooks section. Overall, the iPad looks to be a decent device, except for the price.

As we said the other day, $600 for an iPad (32GB) seems like a mighty big ripoff.

We also spent a few minutes ogling at the Jennifer Lawrence of the Apple store – the sexy, big-screen iMacs (Jennifer Lawrence the fancy 27-inch, all-in-one iMac starts at $1,700).

Apple Store Experience
This was the first time we purchased something at an Apple store (our previous iPhone was bought at an AT&T store)

Notwithstanding the much ballyhooed talk about the Apple shopping experience, we did not think much of it.

Our Apple Store sales rep Chris was borderline indifferent to us. The second Apple sales rep who came by when we were ogling at the iPad was a clueless schmuck who looked like a deer caught in the headlights when we asked him about transferring photos from a digital camera’s SD card. Since we’d browsed the iPad site extensively,  we knew the answer because Apple has a product exactly for that purpose. But the iPad sales rep did not. Sad!

By the way, there were not many customers in the Apple Store. And this was the second day of launch! At times, it seemed the Apple sales reps in their blue T shirts outnumbered the shoppers.

Achtung, Achtung
Now, don’t ask for our old iPhone 3G.

Others in the family have already started playing with it as an iPod Touch (which is what an iPhone becomes without the phone feature).

We’ll do a separate review of the iPhone 4 after fiddling with it for a few days but, yes, we can make and receive calls. 😉

  iPhone 4