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How hard is it to get an iPhone 3G? Some consumers have reported no problems while others have been put on waiting lists nationwide. The Apple web site has a place to check on the availability of the phones at your local Apple store, but when we checked it wasn’t functional. Apple says to come back after 9pm to check the site.

The local Apple stores seem to have hit and miss availability. When I called my own local store they had to check and see if there were any in stock, returning to say there were none available, but there might be some in as little as a couple of hours or perhaps the following day. When queried about the lack of information available from the iPhone online site, the Apple employee said, “Yeah I’ve heard that about the online site. I’m not sure how that gets updated.”

The phones are not available from the online store, partly because you must either go to an Apple store or AT&T store to get the code you need to register the phones on the AT&T network.

AT&T and O2 have both come out to promise customers that they’re putting handsets out in retail just as quickly as they possibly can, with AT&T additionally noting that it’s shipping out direct fulfillment orders on a “first-come, first-serve basis” with lead times currently running around two weeks.

AT&T told me I could come to the store and put in an order that would “probably” take 5-7 days to fill. When I received the phone I would need to come back to the store to activate it.

One wonders why you could not do the same thing online through the Apple Store.