Today I waited "on line" as the Americans might say - but "in a queue" as normal people would, more likely say - at O2 in the Bull Ring, to get my hands on the new iPhone 4. I'm a queueing-for-Apple-goods virgin, but I now have the shiny shiny, and it feels good. I'm not going to review it though. That would be too easy.
I was waiting with m'friend and m'colleague Chris Ivens, who got there a little earlier than me in the queue of half-a-dozen, huddled outside the shop at around 8am. For some inexplicable reason, O2 "couldn't" open until 9:30. Bah. They tried to keep us happy with drinks and free pastries, but it was still frustrating to pass other people who'd bought their shiny new talismans from Orange, who'd opened at 7.
Despite being one of the first dozen in, the girl who dealt with me was in a right flap, and caused my ID check to fail (through constantly mistyping names, addresses and phone numbers). Thanks to her, O2 now have a copy of my card. That's literally never happened to me before, and wouldn't I don't think have happened if she was properly trained and prepared.
So, two-and-a-bit hours after I joined the queue, I was stepping out in style with my blue paper bag, complete with phone, sim and bundled accessories. Here's the unboxing:
A quick note: if you're upgrading, check in-store that they're activating your sim for you. They don't really communicate this to you, but you don't have to activate it online using their queue-based system (and it won't in fact work) if it's done in-store for you. It was done automatically for Chris and me, but we weren't told this, so both of us tried to activate sims that were already being activated.
The good news is that now I've got my grubby mitts on it, and it's pretty ace. Facetime works nicely too. There's a proper review at Engadget, and I might lay down my thoughts on iMovie for the iPhone - which are mixed - some time soon.
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