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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PocketGPSWorld.com have just had their latest Speed Camera Application CamerAlert approved by Apple and it is available for upgrade or purchase now from the Apple AppStore.

The CamerAlert 1.1 release has been tested with the latest iOS4 iPhone software, but does not implement multitasking yet. There are some major features added including camera management, HUD display, and numerous bugfixes.

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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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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.

When I visited the UK Apple online store to reserve our iPhone 4s I encountered a slight problem. On the Reserve & Pickup page the drop down to “select a store” did not get populated correctly in Safari. I closed Safari and then opened it again. I tried this a few times before giving up.

I finally decided to have a try with a different browser and was successful in ordering 2 iPhone 4s using Firefox. Even after placing my order it took a long time before I received my email confirmation, so do not be too worried if you don’t get your email for up to 30 mins.

Isn’t it ironic that I was unable to order the latest shiny new Apple iPhone on an Apple computer using Apple Software. Just over an hour later it looks like my problem has been fixed as the MacPro can load the drop down properly. You can imagine my frustration at not being able to place my reservation…
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Well the waiting is over Apple have announced the price of the new iPhone 4 on their website.  Coming in at £499 for the 16Gb and £599 for the 32Gb the iPhone 4 is somewhat more expensive than expected, but is SIM free and can be used with any provider.  We are still awaiting contract pricing from the various UK wireless carriers. Click here for advanced reservation on the Apple site. The new iPhone 4 will be available on June 24th 2010.

It is difficult to make a direct price comparison to the US devices as the iPhone4 is not offered SIM Free in the USA, you have to buy it with a 2 year contract from AT&T and thus the hardware is subsidised.

Apple is a strange company you either love them or hate them… One thing that nobody denies is that they make great and well designed products, the latest of which is the iPad. This is already on sale in the US and will start to become available at the end of May beginning of June in other countries.

The demand for the iPad is so high that Apple have been having to continually revise international launch dates and extend US shipping dates. Though it is possible to buy iPads in the Apple stores in the USA.

So what is this new Apple iPad phenomenon are we seeing the same sort of euphoria we saw with the iPhone? Is all this interested justified or is this just a brick doomed to failure? Read on to find out what I think in our first comprehensive look at the iPad…
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Yesterday the latest iPhone navigation app to hit the Apple App Store was Magellan RoadMate US and Canada. This is a full featured Turn by Turn application, including advanced features such as text to speech, lane assist, and roadsigns. With mapping provided by Navteq it also supports a Pedestrian Mode and 3D landmarks. It also has in-app iPod controls. At an introductory price of $79.99 it is cheaper than Navigon and TomTom’s apps.

A second item on the same Press Release mentions a Premium Car Kit. This is an Active cradle for the iPhone with its own GPS receiver, internal amplifier and bluetooth hands-free. This is an adjustable design to allow the iPhone to be used with skins and cases in place. It is also compatible with the iPhone classic and iPod Touch enabling these devices to be used for navigation. At $129.99 it is slightly more expensive than the TomTom cradle ($119) and is expected to be shipping in December.
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