Best Buy Begins Selling IPhone 3G

Bummed that your only options for buying iPhones to date has been AT&T stores and Apple Stores? Relax: as of yesterday, that dark time is over. On Sunday, Best Buy became the first third-party retailer to begin selling the iPhone 3G.

With 970 stores in the United States, Best Buy brings considerable weight to iPhone retail, increasing the number of total locations for purchasing the iPhone by half again as much. Apple sells the iPhone 3G at all of its 197 U.S. retail locations and AT&T Wireless offers its iPhone at over 1800 of its stores.

More to the point, by putting the iPhone in Best Buy stores, Apple may have a chance of reaching customers who don't specifically plan on buying an iPhone--call them iPhone switchers, if you will. Don't expect to get any breaks for shopping at Best Buy, though. The chain will sell the 8GB and 16GB models for the same US$199 and $299 price points as anywhere else. Though I'm sure they'll try to sell you an extended warranty anyway.