Yes, I am a fool. It probably won’t have escaped your attention that Apple have launched their brand new 3G iPhone. I have been waiting for today for at least six months. I deliberately held off buying a first generation iPhone cos I wanted one that properly did what its revolutionary design promised. I have been out of contract with Orange since February. I have spent much of the last month registering with 02, hitting the Apple website, desperately hunting for any advance juice I could fine.
Today was the day. My strategy was to hit the Balham Carphone Warehouse (the manager assured me yesterday that they would have at least 16 handsets. I got there just before opening time (08:02 today), to find a line of, about 16 people. Soon as the store opened I busted inside to discover that they only had 6 16GB iPhones. Swung into action with Plan B and arrived at the Apple Store before 09:00. Joined their (surprisingly short queue). Was soon inside the store. Felt silently smug when the first purchaser had his phone activated at 10:15 (he’d been queuing all night). Began to wonder why no one else was walking out. Sat down to wait. And wait. And wait.
To say this launch was a shambles would be being exceedingly economical with the truth. The Apple Store’s iMacs do not run IE, so were employing some kinda emulator or Parallels software to access the 02 Gateway. Said Gateway crashed shortly after shops opened. Eventually at 19:00 I left the store with my new phone, without a connection to 02, but with a promise that they’d call me back in the next few days to get me set up. Happy? Not very. It better be worth it…
ANYWAY. It’s very beautiful. It’s just that it’s still an iBrick. And I bought an iPhone!
UPDATE: phone finally connected to 02. Shambles…