The First iPhone Sold in Palo Alto, Steve Jobs Makes Cameo

by Brian Solis on June 29, 2007

by Brian Solis

Robert Scoble, the man that started the whole thing

Well, I had to see it for myself. Indeed, Palo Alto was the mecca for the Northern California iPhone launch. I expected a bit more than 100, instead I was greeted by at least 1,000 anxious iPhone hopefuls. The line wrapped around an entire block.

Representatives from every major broadcast station were set up as if they were waiting for the release of Paris Hilton.

It was simply unbelievable.

I bumped into a ton of familiar geeks, including Scoble, Dave Winer, Jeremiah Owyang, Lunch 2.0’s Terry Chang, Kurt Collins, Nick Gonzales of TechCrunch, Loren Heiny, Don MacAskill of Smugmug, Leah Culver, Johnny Ham of Ustream.tv, Par Ghandi of Veodia, Gabe Rivera of TechMeme, Thomas Hawk and Kris Tate of Zooomr, tech correspondent Scott Budman, Andy Hertzfeld, Bill Atkinson, Ward Cunningham — and the list goes on and on.

Nick Gonzales of TechCrunch

Kris Tate and Thomas Hawk

Leah Culver

I was there for the magic hour, the time between 5 and 6 when excitement was bubbling up to the tipping point. Once the door opened, you should have seen the wave of people rush the door — simply unbelievable. All of this for a phone … it makes you worry about what would happen in the case of an emergency.

The doors open!

Within moments of entering the store, Scoble, Culver and Winer emerged with their new toys. Suddenly a path cleared as if we were standing on the red carpet, with customer as celebrities and the rest of us as starving, overzealous paparazzi.

After I grabbed the shots from the first few victory laps, I felt I had what I needed to split. Within minutes, Jeremiah sent a note over Twitter that Steve Jobs was there.

Unbelievable.

For more pictures, visit my albums on flickr. San Francisco. Palo Alto.

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Read Robert Scoble’s latest post, “It Lives Up to the Hype.”

Recent highlights from Twitter.

jowyang steve jobs is here at palo alto store…its going nuts. police too

steverubel Now I have AT&T activation, porting and Verizon porting all on the phone. It’s like a summit.

cubrilovic kristopher tate just had his credit card declined at the apple store live on ustream. absolutely hilarious

steverubel OK, here’s the skinny. After talking to a bunch of T reps. They have huge demands on their system and it may take a day for all to activate.