Less than 36 hours to go, and Apple has revealed a clever way to avoid answering their phones all weekend (and next week).

On Apple’s Retail Website, they have established an iPhone availability matrix that will be updated every night at 9PM throughout the summer, to let you know which Apple Stores will have iPhones available when they open the next morning.

A simple concept, but a welcome feature.

Apple announced that it will also open all of its stores an hour early (at 9AM local time) for the rest of the summer to handle iPhone purchases. So, you can wait in line all summer, if you’d like. :)

Also in the news, Think Secret and others report that Apple is cooking up an RSS reader for the iPhone, using its own (lambasted) AJAX/Web development idea.

The reader is parked at reader.mac.com, and currently shows only an error page like the one below, or a blank page if spoofing the iPhone’s browser identification.

Not surprising that Apple is preparing an RSS reader, but it is a nice surprise that they’re ‘eating their own dogfood’ by programming it in the same way that they’ve given the developer community.

What is really a surprise is that, based on its URL, the app will be offered as a part of the .Mac package. I wonder if this means that Windows-using iPhoners will be invited to join the .Mac party?

I’m hoping that this means we’ll see the supposed .Mac re-do sooner, rather than later.