Apple fans queued through the night in Germany and Britain to be among the first in Europe to buy an iPhone, the must-have gadget that is set to shake up the mobile industry.
Over 10,000 iPhones were sold by Friday afternoon in Germany, a T-Mobile spokeswoman said, after it went on sale at midnight in a Deutsche Telekom shop in Cologne.
“It was love at first sight,” said one 50-year-old man.
T-Mobile representatives handed out blankets and umbrellas as well as hot tea, coffee and pretzels for those waiting outside, before sales staff cheered loudly as the first customers entered the store.
In Britain, fans had to wait until 1800 GMT before the music-playing, Web-browsing phone went on sale at stores from Apple, mobile phone retailer Carphone Warehouse <CPW.L and mobile operator O2.
The queue outside central London’s main Apple store stretched around the corner and long lines also formed in the city’s financial area.
First in the queue, clutching a mug of steaming tea, was student Graham Gilbert, who arrived at 0830 GMT on Thursday and endured a wet and cold night on the street.
Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica’s O2 and Carphone have pinned high hopes on the iPhone after more than a million sold in the United States in a few months.
“It’s probably the most important phone this year in terms of the impact it will have on the mobile phone market but it’s going to be a long way from being a best seller,” CCS analyst Ben Wood told Reuters.
“But one of the things that Apple do very well is they spend a lot of time thinking about the consumer experience and we’re going to see their competitors taking more of that approach.”
Most analysts expect the device to be popular with a niche audience, in part due to its price tag, and those queuing on Friday in Germany and Britain were mostly young men.
Most European handsets are subsidised in return for long-term contracts but the iPhone costs 399 euros ($585) in Germany and customers must agree a two-year contract with T-Mobile for monthly fees between 49 and 89 euros.
In Britain the iPhone costs 269 pounds ($568) on top of an 18-month contract costing a minimum of 35 pounds per month.
“It’s a magnificent product and it’s very well marketed by Apple,” said Greenwich Consulting’s Fred Huet. “The real question will be how many they sell once the novelty wears off.”
The phone will go on sale in France at the end of the month.
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The only real thing that the iPhone and the Gphone have in common at the moment are five letters.
Google’s plans for the mobile phone market have caused quite the stir Monday, even though the company’s press conference Monday morning didn’t add much to what we already knew about Android, a collection of software that could be a catalyst for Linux on mobile phones over the next few years. Still, when any company the size of Google makes noise about steering its ship in a certain direction, people take notice.
One nice development is that we can stop calling the damn thing the Gphone, which stopped being cute awhile ago in the fine tradition of J-Lo, A-Rod, and K-Fed. But while both Apple and Google will be selling mobile phone software in late 2008, the companies seem determined to walk a fine line in their new dual relationship as trusted partner and wary competitor.
Android is a nice idea; take the promise of Linux as a mobile operating system and finally give it a backer with some legs. This could set Google up nicely for the future if mobile phones continue to turn into little computers, since companies like Symbian and Microsoft are far from entrenched in this market.
Apple is also eying that future. Much of what Google said about Android during its press conference–such as the desire for a better Internet experience on mobile phones–was uttered by Apple CEO Steve Jobs in January during the presentation of the iPhone. And it’s already sold 1.4 million iPhones in three months.
So this time next year, are we going to be talking about the looming showdown between Google and Apple in mobile computing, or the surprising resignation of Google’s Eric Schmidt from Apple’s board of directors?
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Apple has apparently instituted a credit card-only policy for iPhone sales at its retail stores in order to guarantee supply for the holidays and frustrate potential resellers, according to multiple reports.
Would-be iPhone buyers must now present a credit or debit card if they want to take home an iPhone, and they’re also now limited to just two units, as they were on iPhone Day, according to The Associated Press. The AP quoted an Apple representative explaining the move as a way of making sure there are enough iPhones for the holidays and to prevent unauthorized resellers from flooding the market.
It’s not clear whether the same policy applies to AT&T stores. I e-mailed the Apple representative quoted in the AP report late Friday evening and haven’t heard back.
Before Thursday, when the policy was implemented, you could walk into any Apple store and plunk down cash for up to five iPhones. While the concerns about supply are harder to gauge from a distance, the credit card policy seems designed to make sure buyers leave a paper trail.
You can’t really enforce a purchasing limit if the customer pays cash. How would Apple know if I walked into the downtown San Francisco store this afternoon and bought two iPhones with cash, then drove over to the Stonestown Galleria or down the road to Palo Alto, and picked up two more? Would-be unlockers might also be wary about using a credit card to pay for their purchases, even though unlocking isn’t illegal. Apple is definitely paying attention to the market for unlocked iPhones, estimating earlier this week that 250,000 people have purchased an iPhone with the intention of unlocking it from AT&T’s network.
Apple is apparently well within their rights to refuse to accept cash, as outraged as our resident libertarians might feel. U.S. businesses don’t have to accept cash if they don’t want to, according to the U.S. Treasury’s Web site, unless there is a state law that specifically requires them to accept cash.
I’m sure there are at least a few people who were thinking about equipping their family of four with iPhones this Christmas. The reports make it sound like the restriction will just last throughout the holidays, but that hasn’t been clarified as of right now.
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