Immediate After-Thoughts on the Apple iPhone Launch

Robert and Patrick Scoble with Apple Pioneers Andy Hertzfeld and Bill Atkinson

I've got a few photos uploaded here, but will try and get many more up in the next few days.

I'm exhausted. Dead beat. Tired.

Except for a couple of short cat naps I haven't slept since 4am on Thursday morning.

I do have an iPhone and here almost 4 hours after I purchased it it is still in the box. Unopened. Before experimenting with it I needed to spend some good quality time with my kids and take a shower. So now the kids are in bed, I've had a shower and I'm sitting here with a good glass of wine.

Before I dig into the iPhone I thought I'd reflect back a bit on the last 36 hours or so. First of all, to those who say it was stupid to camp out overnight at the Palo Alto Apple store when I could have gotten it waiting only 4 hours in line at a At&T store somewhere else, you just don't get it.

Camping out last night at the Palo Alto Apple store was not about an iPhone. It was about an experience. Something that I value far more than my new iPhone. There were many highlights for me.

Listening to Kristopher react to having traded nods with Steve Jobs. When we left the Apple store we crossed paths with Jobs. I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't even notice. Kristopher did though and he traded nods and a wink with Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs has been a long-time hero of Kristopher's. It was an intensely powerful emotional thing for him. One of the best days of his life I'm sure.

Hanging out with Robert and Patrick Scoble. Two of the best people you'll ever know. What an amazing experience for a father and son to have together. You should read Robert's quick recap of the event. What a great thing for a father to do with his son. Patrick was so proud to be #1 in line. They made a big deal about it when they let him into the store first. That's a memory that he'll have the rest of his life. What a great dad to make that happen.

Meeting Bill Atkinson last night. For a good chunk of last night I got to listen to Bill Atkinson, one of the original Apple software developers talk about his personal history, his views on technology and most interesting of all for me, his work with digital photography. Atkinson is not only an incredibly accomplished technologist (I think he said he was employee #51 at Apple) but he is also an amazing photographer. Atkinson shoots with a Hasselblad and talked about his workflow, how he approaches photography with a strong critical eye to his own work (He'll take 3,000 or so shots and might only get 4 keepers), and his printing techniques.

Bill spent the night with us and although had he wanted to I'm sure he could have just called up Steve Jobs and gotten an iPhone, he didn't. He legitimately wanted to be there to experience what we all did. He likened it to Woodstock.

You should definitely check out his site online.

Streaming live on uStream with ZooomrTV was also a trip. Lifestreaming is such new technology and to be able to broadcast live and interact with thousands of people all over the world was amazing. It's hard work to lifestream, but I think it really made for an even better experience. We interviewed lots of people. Thanks also to Yohannes who spent some much of his time as our cameraman. Really appreciate it Pal!

Zooomr, Zooomr, Zooomr. As much as Kristopher and I were there for the experience we were also there to try and promote our baby, the photosharing site that we both have poured our heart and soul into for the last year, Zooomr.

And Zooomr was definitely well represented at the iPhone launch. We handed out tons of stickers. We even used our stickers to mark people's number in line. We got to personally evangelize Zooomr to so many people, were able to show our Zooomr stickers on CNBC (and get a link to Zooomr on their blog), many press photos and interviews, and getting to upload lots of photos live to Zooomr as we participated in the launch (resulting in some great digg juice). I think all in it was a pretty successful opportunity for us to evangelize something that we are both so terribly passionate about. Thank you again to Randyman who printed all those stickers for us for free! Randy man you do and always will rock!

The overall sense of community. The overall sense of community was something unreal. People watched each others stuff. Shared stories. Played guitar. SmugMug (a bunch of really awesome guys) bought us dinner and breakfast. Megan McCarthy from Valleywag brought us some beer.

I got to spend time with so many great people. Too many to even try and name. Thanks to everyone who came out and shared in this experience. You know what I'm talking about and it was an incredibly unique thing to be a part of.

I'll have more thoughts on the iPhone later, but the launch itself was the highlight for me.

Update: Great shot of Scoble from the front page of the Mercury News! Also from TechCrunch, Eventstreaming, the seed of a revolution.