KEY POINTS:
The iPhone 3G is on sale in various places around the world, starting here, coinciding with Apple's launched of the App Store within iTunes.
To start things off, the very first worldwide sales of the new iPhone in New Zealand should have been a triumphant event, but the
wind taken was out of its sales a bit by Vodafone NZ's controversial iPhone pricing plans, considering they're painfully expensive compared to virtually everywhere else in the world.
According to a Vodafone spokesperson this morning, 200 people entered the store at a minute past 12 to get the cachet of being the first in the world to get iPhones. Woopee.
I heard this at a pretty lame 'press conference' Vodafone put on at 9am on Friday. This consisted of a tent with a few tethered iPhones for the fondling and some stock Apple brochures. No announcements, nothin'. I also heard a Vodafone spokesperson say "all the action is in the Vodafone stores". Right. This does not make a press conference. Not at all. Click the link if you want to join this 'action'.
The real question is: will Vodafone's 3G stand up to the increased demand of iPhone users? There are some in the industry who think it won't, with users having to poll Vodafone for better service in cell sites closest to them if local 3G doesn't measure up. At least until Vodafone's planned $500-million 3G upgrade actually takes place, anyway.
iFixit and engadget flew representatives down to be among the first - Luke from iFixit was fourth in line. And what do you do when you fly halfway around the world to stand in an Auckland winter at night? Why, you buy a new iPhone, being amongst the first ten people in the world to do so, then pull it to bits, of course!
The good thing is, battery replacement looks a little easier than on the previous iPhone.
Around the world a little more excitement has been generated. The iPhone 3G was available in Australia about two hours after New Zealand.
iPhone 3G will be available in 21 countries in the next 24 hours: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK and the US. France gets added on July 17th.
Maybe their lines will be longer than New Zealand's due to better weather and - definitely - better deals.
Although in Sweden, 50 people were lined up in the rain to await their midnight release. They have our sympathies. Holland has lines too - apparently Tmobile has a webcam pointed at the line in Rotterdam.
Apple's DotMac subscriber and syncing service concurrently morphed into MobleMe overnight, but not without problems.
Some iWeb services could not be published this morning after rejecting sign-ins that had been working for years, at least from New Zealand. Hopefully it will be back online soon. I need to get my site up!
MobileMe is the NZ$149 per year service that really lets iPhones benefit from push technology, and MobileMe keeps your iPhone synced with your PC or Mac. It's been a great feature in its DotMac (.mac) version, supporting podcast publishing straight into iTunes, allowing iWeb (Apple's free web building software) to work at its best and supporting the publishing of photo galleries and more - DotMac/MobileMe users also get a roving email address.
At least the App Store is working - as long as you have upgraded to iTunes 7.7. The iPhone 2.0 software is also out for those with older iPhones who want the new features, and it's also available for iPod touch users for NZ$13.99 - although Wired points out you can also get this software upgrade for free.
The App Store shows featured applications, along with categories, Quick Links, a What's Hot list, plus Staff Favourites. Each application name is accompanied by its category listing and the icon that will appear on your iPhone or iPod touch.
Go to the App Store by clicking on iTunes Store under Store on the left, then on the new App Store entry under iTunes Store to the right of the source list (picture above). Some of them a free, you may as well get those, right? Like Apple's Remote, which lets you use an iPhone or iPod touch as a ... remote. For Apple TV and iTunes. My fave RSS news reader, NetNewsWire, is also a free app for iPhone. It's a mobile RSS Reader for easy access to news and information and is a free native application based on the NetNewsWire RSS feed reader for Mac.
Others are quite ingenious, like LateNiteSoft's US$8 Sketches which lets you draw all over your iPhone's touch-sensitive screen, including on pictures you import from your iPhone's photo albums or the iPhone's camera.
There are iPhone games too - Ambrosia's Aki Mahjong, Mondo Solitaire and Mr Sudoku among them, each priced at US$9.99. But there are loads more apps in the App store - update iTunes to 7.7 and have a look.
- Mark Webster mac.nz