Phalanxes of assistants willing to kill or die for the satiation of their employer's iPhone lust have already marched on our city's Apple stores, hoping that a triumphant return to the office with the shiny treasure will earn them a slightly less intense late-afternoon lashing. A Defamer operative posted at the Beverly Center has just submitted our first report from the battlefront, offering us the vicarious thrill of a glimpse into the shadowy and dangerous world of industry line-waiters:

Even though the city's Apple and Cingular stores will be overrun today by loyal assistants authorized to murder rival line-waiters if it means their bosses will be able to show off an iPhone over tonight's power-dinners, the miracle device's incompatibility with the corporate e-mail servers that power the industry's longtime status symbol/technological shackle, the Blackberry, means that fad-horny Hollywood will have no choice to adopt the douchebag affectation popularized by lightly fictionalized Entourage agent Ari Gold. Reports Variety:

The already ferocious industry competition for our city's scarce iPhone supply may have just become much fiercer with the addition an utterly ruthless player to the market: Sources tell us that CAA has dispatched* up to 10 assistants to infiltrate the camp outside of the Death Star-adjacent Apple store in the Century City mall, where the coveted device will be made available for purchase in a mere 21 hours.