The iPhone 4 officially goes on sale today, so if you pre-ordered last week or you stand in line today, you will soon be the proud parent of the hottest piece of electronics on the planet right now. Congrats! (And if you were really lucky, like this guy, your shipment arrived early back on Tuesday.) On the other hand, if your AT&T plan requires you to upgrade only through AT&T, and if AT&T refused to process your pre-order last week because of all of the chaos, and then AT&T stopped taking pre-orders and now says that they won't have any new iPhones at all this week except for pre-orders ... well then you and I are in the same boat and we won't be getting a new iPhone 4 until, well... hopefully some time before Apple releases the iPhone 5. But no. I'm not bitter. Ahem.
So what might you want to know if you are getting an iPhone today, or soon thereafter? Well, hopefully you read all of the reviews I noted yesterday, especially the great Engadget review. If you don't have a pre-order and want to stand in line, Serenity Caldwell of Macworld has the full details on what you can do. (In short: don't go to an AT&T store; Best Buy and Radio Shack are poor options; and an Apple Store is likely your best option.) Be prepared for more chaos because, as Jonathan Seff of Macworld notes, it was a disaster last week and could be just as bad today. Miguel Helft of the New York Times explains that Apple doesn't expect any white iPhone 4 models for another month, so hopefully you want black.
Once you get your iPhone, what do you get? Heather Kelly of Macworld has pictures of what it looks like to unbox an iPhone 4. While you are marveling at the new screen, you might want to check out this Engadget post featuring photos taken under a microscope of the new screen.
So now what do you do with your old iPhone? Christopher Breen of Macworld runs down some options. Breen doesn't specifically mention any of the websites that buy old iPhones, so I'll tell you to keep in mind that Gazelle (a reputable company that purchases old electronics including iPhones) will pay you up to $212 for a 32 GB iPhone 3GS with all of its cables in perfect condition. Since a 32 GB iPhone 4 costs only $299, that nets out to be a pretty inexpensive upgrade. Even a two year old 8 GB iPhone 3G will get you $95. Of course, you can always just share the love and pass along your old iPhone to a friend or family member.
And finally, once you get your new iPhone 4, how do you resist the urge to tear it open? Well, the real answer to that question may involve seeking professional help, but hopefully this will get you through until you do so: the experts at iFixit posted tons of pictures from their taking apart an iPhone 4. There were able to determine lots of technical information about what is inside, if that is of interest to you. Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit, gave me permission to post three of the pictures here, so this will give you a taste of what it looks like inside of the iPhone 4. Head on over to iFixit to see more.