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Hooray it’s iPhone 4 day

Mike — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 09:11:28 +0000

iPhone 4 launch day

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…

We were still around the corner so had no idea what was happening, but shortly after 8 we started moving. There were 2 queues one for reserved devices and one for “pot-luck”. Fortunately we had reserved our devices and our queue was moving a lot faster.

Just after 9:30 we had moved onto Regent St and could see the Apple flag flying above the doors, and yet another queue to get in the store. 9:45 saw us in the door leaving the heat of the street behind, for the air conditioned interior.

Apple are selling both PAYG and contract iPhones as well as upgrades for existing users. Bearing in mind the length of the queues and the fact that they had not turned any of the pot-luck people away the chances are that they have plenty of stock.

This is not the case in other outlets as we are hearing of a lot of disappointed buyers at O2 and other outlets where stock has been as low as 25 iPhones. This was a scenario we were expecting and is why we pre-ordered ours.

We are now snaking around the glass staircase waiting our turn. Looks like we will not get them before midday. Apparently the reason for this is that the POS hand terminals keep crashing. About time they moved from Windows Mobile to iPod Touch devices like the US.

PocketGPSWorld.com release updated Speed Camera App

Mike — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 15:49:35 +0000

PocketGPSWorld.com CamerAlert

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.

From the Apple AppStore description:

This release introduces new functionality for management of camera reports. It is no longer required to have an active data connection to report cameras, the reports are collected and will be sent next time you have an internet connection. This means that CamerAlert will now work 100% without wireless data. Of course if you do not have a data connection you will not be able to display maps.

There is now a new HUD style display where all the data is mirrored allowing you to lay the iPhone flat on the dash and see a projection on the windscreen. Depending on your windscreen this my introduce ghosting.

There is a slightly more prominent reminder that a new database is available. This is displayed in the list mode.

Numerous bug fixes to improve the stability and performance of the application have been included.

iPhone 4 rakes in over $1B in pre-orders

Mike — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 13:15:43 +0000

iPhone 4 rakes in over $1B

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!!!

Rip off Britain? Not with the iPhone 4 it seems…

Mike — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 12:50:03 +0000

iPhone 4 TCO Cheaper in the UK!

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.

When all the UK carriers have published their prices and tariffs we will be looking to find the cheapest way to own a new iPhone 4. In the USA it is simple you HAVE to use AT&T and you HAVE to sign up for a 24 month contract. In the UK things are much more open, we have 5 carriers offering iPhones plus you can buy them SIM free and use PAYG tariffs.