UPDATE - iPhone: Your first impressions

 

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By Matthew Sparkes

Posted on 12 Nov 2007 at 10:57

The wait is over, and the iPhone is finally out in the UK. However, it seems iPhone-mania has yet to sweep the UK: the queues outside shops were reportedly nothing compared to those at the US launch.

"I've just come back from the Apple Store in Southampton. When I rolled in and saw a vast number of staff I just assumed they'd sold out. Not a bit off it. It was just empty. Unlucky Apple," says Davidnutley, who popped up on the PC Pro forums again soon afterwards, writing from his new purchase.

"Lord knows how this keyboard works out which keys I'm meant to be pressing. My wife calls me sausage fingers but this thing seems to know which key I want even though it appears I'm pressing about four keys at once."

Even on those places where there were queues, it seems that the wait was short. "Well, I turned up at Apple's store in Lakeside at 5:55pm [ahead of the 6:02pm launch], joined the back of a queue of about 300 people, and walked out of the store with my iPhone at about 6:15," says Lx_Nen.

"First impressions - no problems with the O2 setup (surprising, as I wouldn't trust O2 to run a bath, let alone anything more complex), and the phone is great."

Thankfully, some of you have access to information that even us at PC Pro aren't privy to yet: iPhone sales figures.

"Our neighbour's daughter works in an O2 shop and she said initial sales have not been at all impressive, with the usual punters ignoring it or looking at it and labelling it a brick," says cadman35. "I suppose the underlying feature is the cost that puts most people off. A few Apple fans desperate for one isn't indicative to the phone buying population as a whole."

Sensing the advantage of this insider information, others were quick with their questions. "Can she confirm that O2 are pushing £7.50/month insurance, to cover the situation that in the case of a lost iPhone, O2 will require the unlucky punter to buy a new phone and undertake a second contract?" asks Lex2002.

We checked with O2 this morning and, unbelievably, this is true. If you lose your iPhone without insurance, then you will have to splash out on a new handset, and take out a new contract, paying two monthly tariffs at once. Now that is a costly mistake.

UPDATE

O2 has changed tack this morning, and is now claiming that customers won't have to pay for two contracts at once, but they will have to source an iPhone on their own.

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