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Computerworld - Back in July, not long after Apple Inc.'s iPhone was released, I told those plagued by iPhone lust "to get over it." Alas, I was unable to follow my own advice. That's why I bought an iPhone a few weeks back -- after learning that I could ditch Lotus Notes and my crummy CrackBerry at work and use Apple Mail for work e-mail and the iPhone. That combo proved to be absolutely irresistible.

A bit of background: My wife, Cyndy, got a nice BlackBerry at her job several months ago and it quickly became her main phone. Neither of us was using our circa 2005 LG flip phones from Verizon. I'm a jeans-pocket guy for my cell phone, and the LG phone felt like a brick in my pocket. My older model CrackBerry was great for e-mail, but a very poor cell phone -- so bad that I found myself carrying both at times, something that's patently ridiculous. So we dumped our Verizon phones, and I went to the Apple Store in a nearby mall.

The most surprising thing for me was the purchase experience. When I bought my Verizon air card (WWAN service) at the nearby Verizon store back in May, I had to sign-in, wait 15 minutes for a sales rep, politely listen to the upsell and then indicate that, no, I just wanted what I wanted and wait while she brought first the wrong card then the right card from the backroom. Then I was ferried over to the cash register, where I had to wait another 15 minutes to get to the register. Then there was something strange in my account that involved 20 minutes of head scratching and furrowed brows by two Verizon salespeople. Eventually, I was allowed to pay and walk away with my air card.

I had an entirely different experience at the Apple Store. It took me longer to park my car at the mall than it did to walk out with my iPhone; the entire purchase experience lasted about five minutes. There are no decisions to make, accounts to check, contracts to sign. Literally, all the details are taken care of by the iTunes-based iPhone activation software. You have to connect the iPhone to your Windows or Mac computer, download and install iTunes (unless you have it installed already, as all newer Macs do) and then follow the on-screen instructions. Apple's documentation on this process is, well, basic. But then again, you don't really need it. The process of initializing activation required about 10 minutes, and after a little over 20 minutes of wait time, activation was complete -- including the transfer of the phone number from my old Verizon LG cell phone to the AT&T-powered iPhone.