It was a fairly painless experience. My buddy Edward and I went over to Pioneer Place mall in downtown Portland at around 2 pm, and we were about 80th in line. What stunned me is that within a half an hour of the store opening at 6 pm, we had our iPhones and were out the door. The Apple Store was quick!
A few more photos are posted on Flickr.
So far, I think the iPhone is really neat! The activation via iTunes was a model of user-friendliness. Everything works pretty much as advertised. What would really make it great is some excellent third-party software programs. 