Yesterday we took a road trip to the Albany, NY Apple Store in the Crossgates Mall for the iPhone launch. We weren’t sure exactly what to expect since Albany isn’t really a major city the size of New York City or San Francisco. There are still plenty of loyal Apple fans in Albany nonetheless, because when we arrived on the scene at 5:45pm this is what it looked like.

We were surprised at the amount of people that decided to show up! From what we heard the first ten or fifteen people in line had been there camped out all day, which was pretty apparent due to the fold up camping chairs around their shoulders. There were two or three camera crews and four or five police officers parked out front as well. We’re the police really needed to keeping the angry mob in Albany from tearing down the doors at the Apple store two minutes early and all running out with free iPhones? No, because none of that happened. See for yourself in the video we took below.

Apple employees opened the doors at 6pm sharp and let in the first 20 or so people to buy their iPhones. Everything went quietly and smoothly as the huge line started to die down and we made our way into the Apple store to demo the glorious iPhone. We got to play around with the iPhone for about 2 hours, giving us plenty of time to play with each application and feature. Check back in a few hours as we write up our initial impressions of the iPhone!

The iPhone is the hottest gadget of the year and it drops tomorrow at 6pm at AT&T retail stores, Apple retail stores, and online at various web sites. The iPhone received positive reviews from all the major newspapers this week.

Tomorrow we’ll be taking a trip to our closest Apple store, which happens to be the Albany, NY Crossgates Mall Apple Store, for complete coverage on the release and hopefully we’ll be able to get our hands on one for a review! So be sure to check back tomorrow!