And so it begins in earnest. The lines are emerging across the country for the iPhone. At this point (iPhone minus 21 hours or so), there are limited lines at some of the larger and more prominent Apple Stores.

It sounds like many stores have very small lines at this point, but a few have a lot of excitement, according to AppleInsider.

It will be a long day of waiting tomorrow, but it should be exciting!

Good luck to all of the iPhone line-sitters out there!

Steve Jobs became every Apple employee’s favorite boss today.

At a special company-wide communications meeting, Steve Jobs addressed Apple employees nationwide and gave everyone a last-minute pep talk about the importance of the iPhone to the company (and the world).

But the best part must have been the news that Apple is giving every employee who has been with the company for at least a year a free 8GB iPhone!

It’s a classy and smart move on Jobs’ and Apple’s part. Lots of goodwill all around. The employees will get their iPhones by the end of July, when Apple anticipates that the initial demand will begin to slow.

For more, see Ars Technica’s coverage.

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.

For its morning stir of the press (and iPhone fan) pot, Apple presents a video tutorial focusing on the use of iPhone’s keyboard.

Enjoy.

Less than three days left!

John Gruber gives a particularly sharp analysis of the latest iPhone doubt-ery: Daring Fireball: Straws, Grasping Thereof

Enjoy.

AT&T isn’t the only ship full of loose lips. AppleInsider clues us in to a leaked internal memo (PDF-124K) that details Sprint’s anti-iPhone talking points sales pitch.

While the flat-out misinformation in the memo is frustrating (i.e., it’s a 2.0 megapixel camera on the iPhone, not 1.3, the most popular iPods (nanos) are 2, 4, and 8GB, not 40-60GB, and I can’t even type “The iPhone uses Yahoo and Mac email which is not secure” without rolling my eyes), what is perhaps even more striking to me is how the memo shows that the carriers still just don’t get what the iPhone is, or–more importantly–what their customers actually want.

For example:

• Who sees extra storage via minidisc as a practical option on their cell phone?
• Do they really think that “International” is a primary focus of Apple’s feature set design and marketing?
• And how can you live with statements like “The iP-830 is a slider-style phone which people tend to prefer over the iPhone style” when “people” haven’t yet used an iPhone, and probably don’t yet have a preference?

iPhone is truly a multimedia digital device, and I don’t think it will take long for the buying public to realize that there are a lot of intangible ‘features’ that make it truly hard to compare the iPhone to a standard smartphone. And, given memos like these, I feel certain that the carriers have no understanding how valuable and desirable these intangibles are.

The New York Times has an interesting take on this very notion.

Yes, with a little over four days to go until the day that AT&T has dubbed iDay, the iPhone has arrived on American soil.

According to AppleInsider, the digital device is being shipped under the watchful eyes of armed security that is normally reserved for shipments of diamonds and other extremely valuable cargo.

AI also reports that Apple Stores are going to extreme lengths to ban all cameras from stock rooms starting today…

A subtitle editor by the name of Aegisub gives users a bit of advice if they attempt to choose Comic Sans as their font.

Now, if only MS Word’s helpful suggestions included, “It looks like you’re making a sign! Might I suggest something other than Times New Roman and All Caps?”

(Hat tip, Daring Fireball)

The iTunes Store has jumped to number three on the list of retailers of music in the United States. NPD Group MusicWatch has released its first quarter 2007 numbers, and here are the standings for the largest US music retailers:

1. Walmart - 15.8% of music purchases
2. Best Buy - 13.8%
3. iTunes Store - 9.8%
4. Amazon.com - 6.7%
5. Target - 6.6%

Congratulations, Apple and iTunes! It should also be noted that fully 13.8% of all sales are now in downloads, rather than physical CDs. Not bad.

(Thanks, iLounge)