Man, some people get to have all of the fun. As it turns out, around 200 people have had their hands on an iPhone for around 10 weeks now. Not only have they been able to play with the coveted phone, they got to play “secret agent” while using it.

Ok, it might not have been quite as fun to keep it hidden from prying eyes, but one technician described his experience testing the iPhone. The biggest trouble was that he had to test the iPhone in very public areas, since those were the places that the phone would be used most often. Technicians were required to disguise the phone or keep it hidden. One of the best tricks was to use an iPod “sock” over the iPhone.

Technicians have put the iPhone through many tests including bouncing it off of sidewalk and dousing it with water. Most of the tests were simply to talk on the phone and test quality as well as downloading information. So far these technicians have logged over 10,000 hours of use on the phone, this includes 5,000 hours of talk time and 5GB of data usage. We'll find out at 6PM next Friday if it paid off.

I'm just wondering what these testers had to do in order to be selected for the job. I'm sure they were already Apple employees, but did they have some kind of lottery, or were they pre-selected? In other words, what do I have to do to get my hands on the 2.0 before it comes out?

The Top Secret Apple iPhone Tests [via investorvillage]