Ismail Elshareef, 31, a software engineer in Los Angeles, has his equipment — sleeping bag, sleeping pad, camping chair, sweatshirt, sweat pants, breath mints and Chuck Palahniuk novel — and strategy in place. On Saturday, he switched phone service from T-Mobile to AT&T. He planned to go to the Apple store at a nearby mall Wednesday night, and if a line were already forming, he planned to join it. If not, he planned to return today at 5 a.m.

The iPhone is arriving tightly wrapped in Apple's trademark secrecy. Employees at the 164 Apple stores and 1,800 AT&T Wireless stores were trained this week in how to use the iPhone, but they were given few other details that might come in handy.

On Saturday, a trio of employees at a store near Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh — clad in T-shirts given to all Apple store employees last week that read, "June 29. The wait is almost over" — tried to offer whatever advice they could to a patron wondering what time she should arrive on Friday.

Until Tuesday, they did not know how to activate the phones, or what they could tell customers about service contracts with AT&T. They certainly did not know how many iPhones their store would receive.

To fill the information gap, Web sites devoted to Apple-related news are reporting that shipments of the iPhone from Asia (via a "Hong Kong-based air courier") are accompanied by armed guards, and that all camera-enabled devices are being banned from Apple store stockrooms.

Gridskipper.com mapped where the closest public restrooms and other necessities are to a dozen Apple stores. The rate plan — that is right, the rate plan — garnered headlines Tuesday morning after the AT&T and Apple announcement. (The basic plan is $60 a month for 450 voice minutes, 200 text messages and unlimited Web browsing.)

One Web site caused a stir when it posted official memos AT&T sent to its store managers on the need for stanchions to keep the anticipated crowds on the sidewalk in lines, as well as a how-to script, which seemed to be written for sixth-graders, for speaking to building landlords about security.

At an AT&T Wireless store in downtown Sacramento, where iPhone posters were already in place, an employee noted the high degree of secrecy being demanded by Apple, adding that his job was on the line if he said too much.

Customers, in the meantime, are being teased with television commercials and a lengthy tutorial recently released on the Apple Web site. By late last week, in the windows of Apple stores around the country, giant mockups of the iPhone ran a video showing off the already fabled convergence of capabilities e-mail messaging, high-resolution video, music and full-scale Web browsing.

At $500 or $600, depending on the amount of memory, the 4.8-ounce device is expensive by any standards. And early reviews are already mixed. Yet little is likely to deter those who have their minds made up.