Caveat iPhoner: Not all AT&T stores are created equal

So you want an iPhone? (Join the club.)

“But wait,” you say, “I have a plan to camp out at my neighborhood AT&T store all afternoon.”

Hang on a minute, turbo.

The AP is reporting that not every AT&T will be holding this shiny hunk of awesomeisity. But it’s also telling you how to separate the wheat from the iPhone, as it were.

AT&T owns 1,800 retail stores — which it has been rebranding from Cingular since taking over complete ownership late last year — but thousands of other franchise outlets carry the AT&T or Cingular name. In all, AT&T has 8,000 franchise outlets and retail carriers, though retailers usually carry AT&T competitors as well.

[AT&T spokesman Fletcher] Cook said the AT&T-owned stores are branded that way, whereas other franchise outlets still carry the Cingular name.

But apparently not everyone’s getting the message, according to Byte of the Apple:

Take the Cingular store on University Ave. in Palo Alto, California. From the look of it, it would seem to be a logical place to go for an iPhone if the line at the gleaming Apple store a few blocks away gets too long. After all, the sign on its storefront says Cingular Wireless, and the banner in the window says “Cingular is now the new AT&T”. But since the store is owned by a franchisee, it won’t have iPhones. That’s already causing confusion. Some five people a day have been coming in asking to get on the waiting list for an iPhone, says salesman Bruce Hamilton.

So remember, if you’re going into a store that still is singing about Cingy, you’re in the wrong spot.