Hang onto your underoos kids! The first shipment of iPhones began to arrive earlier this week accompanied by armed guards. (Nice)

People in New York are actually lining up at the flagship Apple Glass Cube Store on 5th Avenue to get their paws on the first iPhones. So far there are no campers at the Apple Store on Michigan Avenue. The store will close at 2 p.m. Friday to prepare for the 6 p.m. launch.

The iPhone, who has mustered more attention than the new Blackberry and update TREO combined, will end up costing tech-fiends $500-600. Those models have 4 and 8 gigabytes of storage, respectively. That’s room for about 825 or 1,825 songs. The price includes a cell phone, iPod, email, web browser, camera, alarm clock, Palm-type organizer and “one heck of a status symbol.”

It’s fast, it’s beautiful, it’s sleak. The best part? It’s dead simple to operate even my mother could figure it out (Hi Mom!) It’s menu-free. You can’t get lost because the phone opens to the homepage, which lays out icons for the phone’s 16 functions. But is it more than just eye candy? Does the phone actually work? With all the hype about the simple use and “innovative” design (I’m not sure I agree with this) I haven’t heard much about how it functions. I guess we’ll find out.

Personally, I’d rather not spend $500-600 to become a beta tester. I think I’ll wait for the second or even third generation of iPhones to arrive. Plus I need to work that bad boy into my budget and that takes time!

On the other hand, some people have convinced themselves that now is the right time for the iPhone and are desperately bargaining with themselves that it’s okay to spend that much on a phone. While they try to weasel that item into their monthly purchases budget, I’m sitting back and waiting to hear first hand how that phone works.

Apple has chosen AT&T to be the iPhones official carrier, but gives the buyer the option to purchase a phone plan through iTunes instead of dealing with those obnoxious sales people. Hoorah! Unfortunate for me, I have Verizon, thus another reason why the iPhone is not a good investment for me right now. I’d have to pay to quit my service. No thanks.