Well… it’s just under 24 hours before all of America will be drooling over their new Apple iPhones. Do I want one? Meh… Maybe version 2.0. I still have 18 months left on my renewed Spring PCS contract. But it does look cool. And way better than the other phones trying to compete with it. Time will tell how groundbreaking this latest effort by Apple will be. Granted – I’ve been Apple’tized since the 3rd grade when our family bought an Apple //e (just had to use the same forward slashes!) We even had an Apple SilentType. Mmmmm… Thermal printers!

Anyway – I digress. The point of my ramblings is more specific to how Apple spoke about their employees on this “dawn of the new age…”

Steve got a “look on his face that was kind of the same look as he had when introducing the Mac in 1984.” He said that it sounded like Steve thought the iPhone launch was a really huge deal, and considered it to be one of the most revolutionary and exciting products they had ever created. Steve said, “Don’t worry about two years from now,” they’ll deal with that as it comes. Apple employees will be able to tell their grandkids that they were at Apple when they launched the iPhone, and that it was all worth the sacrifice.

To thank the employees, all full time Apple employees in the US who have been there for a year will be getting an iPhone at the end of July. Multiple sources have told me that they believe this includes retail employees.

Granted – $600 bonus? Yeah, maybe. But I work in technology. I have the projects that seem to last in terms of “years” rather than weeks. Everything pushed aside (including reason) to make the date. It just seems that in this effort – I think the Apple employees really think that their management teams really do appreciate them. There’s something substantial being released at the end of their project. Something tangible.

Maybe I’ll get a paid-in-full mortgage…