Spot Check: No iPhone Line Yet in SoHo, MePa

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The iPhone 3G goes on sale this Friday, which means you have less than five days to park yourself in line. To help you strategize, we'll be monitoring the chaos outside all three Manhattan Apple stores all week long.

Apple Fifth Avenue
Time: 2 PM
Head Count: About ten
Color: Most of the line here is made up of activists from an environmentalist collective called TheWhoFarm, who've been lined up since the Fourth of July as a publicity stunt. (They want the White House to turn its lawn into an organic farm —and they also want to get the 3G before anyone else does.)

Apple MePa
Time: Noon
Head Count: Zero
Color: Staff don't even know where they're going to put the line yet.

Apple SoHo
Time: Noon
Head Count: Zero
Color: This might be the marquee waiting spot—nobody's here, and you could probably get Balthazar to deliver to the line.