I happen to be in London this morning for iPhone 3G day. Congratulations to Apple on another successful launch. There were queues outside the (numerous) branches of Carphone Warehouse and O2; I didn’t visit the temple of Apple itself in Regent Street. Further, the other mobile stores seemed particularly quiet, with plenty of staff but few customers. The 16GB model was most in demand; early birds were able to grab one, but by about 11.00 I was told that it was sold out "all over London".

I did have a quick play with a sample. Lovely design, but, errrm, superficially much like iPhone 1.0. 

Seeing these queues has a remarkable power. Part of me wanted to stand in line and sign up, just because. Another part of me knows that it is not a good fit for my requirements. I am a partial match. I am a heavy data user while out of the office, and fairly annoyed with my current 3G phone (Samsung i600) which seems to lose its data connection for no apparent reason and requires a restart.

On the other hand, here’s what I don’t like. First, the price. The cheapest deal, presuming you want the 16GB (8GB is £50 less), is £159 for the device plus £30 monthly for 18 months. That’s £699; or a little bit less if you understand about net present value. For the true cost, you also have to deduct what you would otherwise spend on mobile fees; in my case I pay as I go so it is not very much.

I might still buy it, except that I prefer a real thumb keyboard. Further, I hate the App Store idea (though I admire the way Apple makes everything into a profit centre); I feel that for £699 I should be able to install whatever apps I want from wherever I want, as I can with the i600. I also hate the games Apple is playing by disallowing Flash and Java.

Perhaps I’ll pick up a used and jailbroken first gen model.

PS blog posted using Tablet PC connected to the Internet via Bluetooth on the Samsung i600