The long awaited launch day for the iPhone 4 has arrived, and it is way bigger than previous iPhone launches. We were up at 5am to get up to get to the Apple UK flagship store in Regent St, London. Arriving at 7am we joined the end of a long, long queue of about 3000 fellow Appleites waiting to get their hands on the new iPhone 4.

Just before 8:00 a huge cheer went up round the corner at the front of the store…

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The long awaited upgrade for the Apple iPhone is now ready to be downloaded and installed from iTunes. Names iOS 4 the OS upgrade is free to all iPhone users and will install automatically when you connect your iPhone to iTunes and press the update button.

In a slightly unusual move Apple have released the iPhone OS update before the new devices hit the stores. Normally it is the other way round.

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Well Vodafone have now announced their pricing for the new iPhone 4 handset and contracts. It would appear that the original leaked pricing structures were way off mark. We have updated our iPhone 4 price comparison post to reflect the confirmed pricing.

The iPhone 4 handset will cost £219 and there will be 18 and 24 month contracts. The 18 month contract will cost £30 per month with 75 minutes of calls, 250 text messages, and 1Gb of data. Although this works out at £10 more than the equivalent O2 contract with less calls and texts it does offer double the data. If you do go over the O2 500Mb limit just once then the Vodafone contract becomes cheaper.

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Each time Apple releases a new iPhone I ask myself is buying it on contract the wise thing to do? If you are in the USA you have no choice it is AT&T signing your life away for 2 years: End Of!

It used to be like that in the UK too, but with the iPhone 3GS PAYG was introduced and that changed the game. Still on O2 and the iPhone was locked to the O2 network. But then O2 lost its monopoly and other carriers got in on the act. The result is that with the launch of the iPhone 4 we will have 4 carriers available and the iPhone will be available both on contract and SIM free.

So with all these options available what is the best way to own an iPhone 4? Read on to find out…

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Apple has allegedly sold 600,000 iPhone 4 in it’s first day of pre-order. So many in fact that pre-order has been stopped at AT&T and Apple are quoting July 14th for current orders. So al in all a fantastic product launch, probably more units ordered than Apple or AT&T ever envisioned.

So who is counting all the zeros here?

I know this is not going to be all that accurate but lets just assume that all the buyers are going for the 16Gb iPhone 4, on an AT&T plan. The initial income from the iPhone 4 handset sales is $120M for one day!

Now on the basis that all these users will have 24 month contracts at $70 a month we are looking at over $1B worth of airtime contracts: a staggering $1.13B in one day, and that is a conservative estimate!!!

In a surprising turn of events we have calculated that the total cost of ownership of an iPhone 4 is far cheaper in the UK than it is in the USA. Although Orange are the only UK Carrier to have currently published their pricing it is reasonable to assume that O2, Vodafone and 3 will have similar pricing options.

So if you want a new 16Gb iPhone 4 with no existing contract it will cost you £169 from Orange on a 24 month contract. From AT&T it will cost $199+tax = $211.94 (approx £143) so it is £26 or so cheaper in the USA. But here is the real cost… the airtime. For Orange the cheapest airtime contract is £30 a month ($44) from AT&T it is $70+tax = $74.55 (£50.32) a difference of $30 (£20.32) a month.

So adding all this up together it looks like it would cost $2,001 (£1,355) to own an iPhone 4 in the US for 2 years, and just £889 ($1,312) in the UK a saving of £466 or $689.

On the assumption that in 12 months time you will be wanting to upgrade to the latest iPhone 5 )or whatever) you have more options in the UK. Again with Orange you can get the same iPhone 4 on an 18 month contract costing £229 and £35 a month for a total of £859 or $1286 making an even bigger saving of £496 or $715.

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Well just over a day since Apple announced the SIM Free pricing for the new iPhone 4 Orange become the first UK carrier to announce their pricing structure.

Starting at £169 and £30 a month for a 24 month contract and rising to £229 and £35 a month for a 18 month contract based on a 16Gb iPhone 4. This compares to $199 plus tax for a 24 month AT&T contract at $70 a month in the USA.

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As California wakes up and anyone wanting an upgrade of their existing iPhone in the USA goes online to request an upgrade the AT&T servers seem unable to cope. We have been getting reports from across the USA for some time that users are unable to process upgrade requests with AT&T.

One of our US readers attempting to upgrade sent us the following error he received:
There was a problem with your request.
P1015: We’re sorry, but we are experiencing a system error that prevents us from completing your request. For non iPhone related upgrades, please call Customer Care at 1-888-867-4384 and provide the error number at the beginning of this message.

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It looks like the UK pre-orders for pickup of the latest Apple iPhone 4 have sold out for Launch Day on the 24th June. The Apple Store was unavailable earlier today possibly due to the thousands of Appleites attempting to reserve their new iPhone 4. After about 2 hours it was back again, with the iPhone 4 still available, but that status has now changed. The pre-order for in-store pickup is now “unavailable”.

All is not lost though you can still get your new iPhone 4 by buying online and according to the Apple Store it will be delivered on the 24th. Unfortunately there are no white ones available.

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Apple’s original colour, white, will not be available for the new iPhone 4 on the launch day. In a strange move Apple seem to be supplying only the black version of the new iPhone 4 according to the iPhone 4 pre-order section of the company’s website. The white version has not been dropped, just not available for pre-order.

This will disappoint a large number of Apple faithful who have always purchased the White MacBook, White iPod and White iPhones. It is a difficult choice for them having to select between getting the new iPhone in black on launch day or waiting an indefinite period of time to get the beloved white phone.

Of course things may well change between now and the 24th and the white iPhone 4 may make an appearance in the store on the day. If not it doesn’t matter my black iPhone will be waiting for me.