Waiting out the iPhone 4

I’m not one of the 600,000-plus people who reserved or preordered the Apple iPhone 4, which is scheduled to emerge from its nearly transparent wrapper early Thursday. I still want one. I know I will get one. The big questions for me, are, “When?” and “How?”

Do I get up really early and camp outside one of the retailers, such as Best Buy, Radio Shack and Walmart, that will have the new phone available for walk-in shoppers? Or do I go to an AT&T retail store? Hmmm ...

There's some confusion about AT&T retail stores. Some reports say there won't be inventory available for those without preorders; others say to check Thursday. I don't think I'll stand in line there, although it may be one spot in the valley almost guaranteed to not drop a call on AT&T’s overtaxed network.

On the plus side, I don't have to have the new iPhone immediately. Yes, it would be nice, but my 3G model is working nicely, and I did wait through the several hours of upgrading to the new iOS4 operating system earlier this week. The changes are few for folks with the older model like me, but I do appreciate the single e-mail inbox and threaded messages. I haven't yet tried moving my applications to folders, but will likely do that when I get the new phone.

If you've been following my Apple exploits, you know I'm still an iPad holdout. From everything I've read, the new iPhone 4 will have better hardware than the iPad, albeit much more compact. And it will be able to function as a phone right out of the box. And I’ll only need to pay about $300 for the new phone, which is about $500 less than I’d have to pay for a comparable iPad.

I'll keep you posted on what's happening tomorrow, as I plan to monitor several locations and filter through the many stories from across the country. I don't think I'll be doing it from my new iPhone, though. Not just yet.

Read reviews of the iPhone 4:

David Pogue, New York Times: http://nyti.ms/b6I5BA

Walter Mossberg, Wall Street Journal: http://bit.ly/birWar