As the international date line swung around to the States and rain finally stopped in NY, a few hundred people lined up outside the Fifth Avenue Apple Store today for Apple's new iPhone, with the those The iLife guys up front descending into the store at 7AM to the sound of applause from the cheery horde of Apple Store employees. It was a far sight from the mayhem of previous launches -- the whole line was able to be contained in the elevated portion to the right of the store, no sidewalk necessary -- but it was still a fairly impressive turnout for a spec-bumped phone and a rainy night. Stand by for video from the launch, and be sure to send in your own launch impressions.

Update: Video is after the break!

It's pretty gross in NY right now -- sure, you've seen rain before, but you've never really experienced it until you've seen the grit and determination of these city folk wandering around in a light downpour with their $500 umbrellas. That's why it comes as zero surprise to see that despite the ongoing drizzle, a few brave souls have gathered in front of Apple's flagship store to be among the first in the States to get an iPhone 3G S tomorrow morning. Sure, they could've pre-ordered for delivery and stayed dry, but what's the fun in that? So far it's four friends from The iLife blog keeping each other company, with plans to upgrade one of the crew's original iPhones (for that attractive full subsidy price). These guys also braved the mayhem of the iPhone 3G launch, and who knows if they'll wise up before the next one. By 7AM tomorrow they'll have spent 24 hours in the elements -- quite a lot of commitment for a phone, but hey, that video recording bit is pretty neat, and male bonding is forever. Meet these guys and their cloud-sent adversary on video after the break, and check out the read link for their ongoing liveblog of the launch -- naturally courtesy of some iPhone 3.0 tethering.

Waiting days in the blistering sun for a phone that more level-headed folks (that is, not us) will be able to get by simply waltzing into a store a few days later just isn't what it used to be, is it? As iPhones make the inevitable transition from wildly-anticipated objects of lust to commodities, it seems that Apple's putting progressively less effort into carefully orchestrating and micro-managing launches -- and if you want solid proof of that, look no further than the shipping tracking numbers coming off of the online Apple Store's order status site where you'll find that some iPhone 3G S units should be in buyers' hands tomorrow. If you're counting, that'd be a full two days before the official release of this Friday -- and while we suppose the company could have some agreement in place with its carriers to hold onto the units until the official release, we're not giving UPS that much credit.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Update: It seems that many, if not all, of the individuals with tracking numbers leading to phones already stateside are now seeing the following status update on their packages: "THE RECEIVER REQUESTED A HOLD FOR A FUTURE DELIVERY DATE. UPS WILL ATTEMPT DELIVERY ON DATE REQUESTED." In other words, Apple's having these guys queue up the phones until they give the word, presumably not until Friday. Maybe some distribution centers with loose reputations might let you run down there and pick 'em up, though? Worth a shot, right?

We've got a number of tips this morning about lucky iPhone 3G S pre-orderers getting shipment notifications from Apple. Naturally, with a high profile launch like this we're guessing Apple has done all it can to ensure shipments won't slip through earlier than the June 19th launch date, but hopefully at least few folks will get lucky -- and at least they've got one of the only guarantees of a launch day phone going. In other news, an anonymous Apple Store employee has done some homework and tallied up average reservation numbers at other US stores -- he estimates about 800 people on average are on the reservation list per Apple Store (ranging from a couple hundred to well over a thousand), which amounts to about 200,000 reservations as of now, a number he believes could double before launch. There's no way to back that number up, but it sounds fairly rational. Finally, the iPhone 3G S firmware download link has made its way into the wild. Sure, it doesn't do you any good if you don't have an iPhone 3G S, but we thought you just might want to know all the same.

[Thanks to everyone who sent these in]

Read - iPhone 3G S shipping notice
Read - iPhone 3G S firmware

Back when we were your age, we had to buy our iPhone 3Gs partway online, then we'd trudge across 17 miles of frozen tundra to the Apple Store to complete the sale -- and that's the way we liked it. Now, you whippersnappers have the option of letting Apple ship the thing straight to your door, you lazy, good-for-nothing bums. Of course, you could do this directly through AT&T for a hot minute now, but if your eyes are particularly sensitive to shades of orange, maybe this'll be a more pleasant experience for you.

[Thanks, iphonequeen]

Here we go again. It's Tuesday and the Apple store has gone down in the US, Europe, and across Asia which is a pretty good indicator of new product(s). So what are we looking at? 2TB Time Capsule, Xserve refresh (yawn), or something a bit more interesting (but not big enough for a press conference) like an ION-based Mac mini? We'll know in a few hours -- the Store usually lights up at 0830 New York time.

Update: New Xserve announced (as rumored) with 2x the performance. A fine addition to your raised floor apartments we're sure.

[Thanks, Sam M.]

Yeah, we know, the Apple Store's down. We had presumed it to be regular maintenance since it's not Tuesday and there's not a single Apple rumor in the mix that would warrant such a quiet product launch. Then we peeped MacRumors and low and behold Arn's got a source claiming 4GB iPod shuffles (up from 2GB) are on the way in black, silver, and possibly other colors. Makes sense to us.

Yes, it's that most exciting time of the week for all the Mac fanboys and fangirls, when the Apple Store goes down and nobody knows why. Okay, so we're pretty sure we know why, but that doesn't mean there couldn't be some other surprises afoot, and everybody loves a surprise -- except those with weak bladders or congenital heat defects, generally. Lovers of stylish desktops should be in for a treat today, but you just never know for sure until the site re-appears. We'll be watching closely for that to happen.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Yep, there's a Macworld keynote going on this morning -- as usual, the Apple Store just went down. That's not all Apple's web monkeys have been up to this morning, though: the company's Downloads page now lists "iWork '09," which doesn't quite exist yet. We'll see what Philly Schills has to say about that -- we're also hearing there might be some iPhone tethering news coming. Keep it locked right here! iWork screencap after the break.

[Thanks, Jakob]

What started down under has followed the sun home, Apple's Black Friday sale is now live at the US Apple store. At first glance the sale is consistent with years past and what we've already seen In Australia and elsewhere -- so much for all the analyst expectations of a big blow out.

What could Apple possibly be announcing today that would cause a whole bunch of its international stores (Australia, Taiwan, Singapore, etc.) to go down? And what's with that new iPhone tab showing up on those sites? We're so confused. Hold us.

Update: Rolling outage now fully global.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

If we saw the typical "Ships in 1-2 weeks" here or whatever, we wouldn't be sounding an alarm, but something is going on here. Both Apple's US and UK online stores are joining the O2 choir and are now reporting the iPhone as "currently unavailable" -- no 8GB, no 16GB, no nothing. It seems that Apple either significantly underestimated demand for the 2.5G models ahead of the 3G release that's still a few weeks (or months) down the road, or the 3G model is a whole heck of a lot closer than we could've imagined. Is anyone suddenly having a nasty case of "I only want what I can't have" syndrome and regretting that they didn't order one of these bad boys a day or two ago?

[Via GadgetKing, thanks to everyone who sent this in]

C'mon, you knew this was coming. It's Tuesday -- didn't your ultra-sensitive Apple radar go all blinky pink on you as soon as the clock struck midnight? No? Guess that was just us. At any rate, it's clear something is afoot, and if those buzzes about MacBook and / or MacBook Pro refreshes we heard all day yesterday are right, there's gonna be some happy fanboys out there today. If they were wrong? Do the words Cupertino Riot of '08 mean anything to you? Stay tuned here for absolute, up-to-the-minute, breaking news. Huzzah! Oh, and we also see the UK / Australia outlets (among others) are also temporarily out of service. Goodie.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Sigh. You know the drill. A couple hours of downtime and then we'll see nothing (maintenance), or new products that range from the mundane (Aperture 2) to the golly (32GB iPod touch). We already saw the iPod shuffle drop by $30 this morning before Apple pulled the plug on the store. Perhaps the $100 drops on the iPhone and touch are just minutes away? It is Tuesday after all.

The Apple Store is back online with Aperture 2 for $199 but little else. While Aperture 2 is certainly a boon to the pro photographers among us, it seems abundantly clear that this Tuesday isn't bringing you a MacBook Pro update, which fills us with great sadness. We were also hoping for that Apple TV (take 2) update to finally hit, or perhaps a MacBook spec bump, but no dice there either. Perhaps this whole "unreasonable optimism" thing is overrated.