iPhone...Fastest Selling of all Time!!!

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O2 CEO Peter Erskine claims Apple's iPhone has been the fastest selling device his mobile network has ever seen.

Actual sales figures of the hotly-touted Apple mobile remain unknown, though Erskine told The Times newspaper that "tens of thousands" of iPhones sold across the launch weekend.


An additional report in the Sunday Mirror claimed that 70,000 iPhones were sold across the launch weekend. That report cited an unnamed O2 spokesman.

"Demand has exceeded our expectations and we believe it will be the fastest selling mobile ever," the spokesman said. "We've hundreds of thousands of devices to sell and we are extremely happy with how things have gone."

O2 expects to sell "a couple of hundred thousand" iPhones over Christmas and New Year.

Speaking to the Times, Erskine also revealed that approximately: "Two-thirds of iPhone customers are new to O2," meaning the company has succesfully stolen subscribers away from competing networks.

Apple, O2 and Carphone Warehouse have so far declined to offer detailed sales figures for the iPhone in the UK market, and local media reports have been mixed, with some claiming the launch a failure while others observe queues and steady traffic at most major stores belonging to the three firms.

The rush to buy iPhones saw foot visitors at O2 stores increase to three times the traffic generated in the same weekend last year.

Apple Speaks with China for iPhone Deal

Apple is reportedly speaking with China Mobile over plans to launch the iPhone in China.

China Mobile CEO Wang Jianzhou, revealed his company is talking with Apple in an attempt to launch the iPhone in China. China is one of the world's largest mobile phone markets, but while talks continue, the ink's nowhere yet dry on the deal.


"Of course, we hope to bring the iPhone to China," Huang Haibo, a China Mobile executive, told the Agence France-Presse news agency. "But for the time being we are only in preliminary contact with Apple, and we have not made any concrete progress yet," he said.

Apple has always confirmed it intends launching its device in the Asian market in 2008, and is currently engaged in discussion with all the major mobile networks in the region.

Apple hopes to sell ten million iPhones by the end of 2008. It has already sold in excess of 1.4 million handsets.

iPhone Huge Sales

Apple has sold 1.4 million iPhones since it went on sale in the US and O2 and T-Mobile are expecting strong sales.
Graham Gilbert was the first to buy the iPhone at the London store
Mr Joswiak said: "People love their experience with the iPhone. They don't love the experience with other phones. That is why our sales are through the roof."

"We assume that the device will find a very good reception on the market," said Rene Bresgen, a spokesman for Deutsche Telekom, owners of T-Mobile in Germany.

More than a 1,000 O2 shops, Carphone Warehouse stores and Apple shops are expected to sell the device.

Some iPhone owners in the UK have not been content to wait for the official release and have bought the device in the US and unlocked it for use on any network.

One owner, called Daryl, told BBC News he had bought 14 phones in the US for himself and friends and unlocked them.

He said he had unlocked his original phone because he didn't want to be tied to one network.

"I like the current network I am on and I'd like to stay with that network. I don't like be imposed upon as to which network I want to switch to.

"Also the actual O2 network doesn't have very good coverage where I live; Orange has good coverage where I live, that's why I chose them first, and why I want to stay with them."

iPhone Feature Delayed

Apple shops stopped from selling iPhone
When the iPhone goes on sale at 6.02pm on Friday, a key constituent of the Apple experience will be missing - and there's little you or anyone else can do about it.

For Apple has decided that only official Apple Retail Stores and branches of Carphone Warehouse and O2 shops can sell the iPhone.

This consciously leaves out the 24 or so Apple premium resellers- those local Apple specialist stores that can often be as good as the real thing.

Now while it's undoubtedly sad that these resellers will miss out on the sales bonanza the iPhone will bring; worse is what'll happen when you hit a problem with the iPhone and you try to ask a reseller for help.

No iPhone help
They'll nod, smile politely and then point you in the direction of your nearest Apple / O2 / Carphone Warehouse store, which may or may not be in the same town as the one you're currently in. Apple premium resellers aren't even allowed to service the iPhone.

Mark Hooper, MD of premium reseller Farpoint told Tech.co.uk:

"It's a kick in the teeth for us - as a premium reseller that's invested a lot of money in Apple - not to sell key products for which we can give a great user experience. Because [the iPhone] is not just a phone. It does so much more than that.

"When people look on the back of the iPhone they'll go 'Apple' and where are they going to go? To us, not to Carphone Warehouse. And they're going to go away with a bad taste in their mouths [because we can't help them]."

Both Carphone Warehouse and O2 say they'll have specially trained staff in every store who can help with any iPhone questions or complaints. It remains to be seen whether they're able to provide the same level of customer service that Apple's premium resellers claim, however.

High Demands On iPhone

O2 has substantially bulked up its customer service staff ahead of the high-profile launch of Apple's iPhone this week as the mobile operator looks to ensure that consumers that fork out for the expensive handset receive the best possible support.

O2 will add 1,400 staff prior to the launch of the handset on Friday to ensure it can cope with the unprecedented demand for the flashy phone. It will take on around 700 new customer service employees in Glasgow and Leeds, with a further 700 staff added across the company's chain of High Street stores.

O2 and Carphone Warehouse are bracing themselves for a stampede of customers when the iPhone goes on sale at 6pm on Friday.

Carphone Warehouse, which will keep its stores open late to satisfy demand for the touch-screen handset, has said it could sell as many as 10,000 iPhones in the first day alone despite the £279 price tag which comes on top of the contract with O2 that will cost between £35 and £55 a month. O2, which is supplying the handset directly to Carphone Warehouse, has ordered around 200,000 iPhones from Apple to satisfy demand over the Christmas period.

John McGuigan, head of O2's post-pay customer service unit, said that around 200 of the new staff will be dedicated to handling customer calls related to the iPhone, helping to activate and register the user if assistance is required.

He said: "It is very important to get the customer-service experience right."

He added that O2 will work closely with Apple which has already been closely involved with AT&T in the US to support the iPhone there.

Mr McGuigan added that it has also swelled its customer service employee ranks to ensure that its existing customers are not neglected as a result of increased support for the iPhone.

iPhone: Problem or Solution of Network

Apple iPhone warning proves true

Users may not be able to add Apple features to an unlocked phone
An Apple software update is disabling iPhones that have been unlocked by owners who wanted to choose which mobile network to use.
Earlier this week Apple said a planned update would leave the device "permanently inoperable".

Thousands of iPhone owners hacked their expensive gadget in order to unlock it for use with other mobile carriers and to run a host of unsupported programs to benefit their own needs.

There are also reports of the update causing issues with unaltered iPhones.

On Monday Apple issued a statement in which it said many of the unauthorised iPhone unlocking programs caused "irreparable damage" to the device's software.

The company said this would "likely result in the modified iPhone becoming permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone software update is installed".

That warning has now proved correct as many owners are reporting their phones no longer work following installation of the update.

Apple requires iPhone owners to take out a lengthy contract with AT&T in the United States but there are a number of programs on the net that unlock the device for use with other networks.

A few owners are reporting on technology blogs and Apple's own forums that the update is deleting contacts information, as well as photos and music, on iPhones that have not been modified in any way, which may be a start of a new problem for i-phone holders that have not being part of in changing their network to something else.

...The hacking of the iphone...

A serious isue recently cropped up that suggested that company Independant Security evaluators have found a way to hack an iphone simply by injecting a bit of code through to its web browser, causing ''buffer-overflow'' which is like a water overflow but except of water the verflow of technology and data.

That could be done either through a malicious Wi-Fi network (which redirected you to a fake website when you thought you were going to a trusted one) or via a malicious site that you were tempted to visit one way or another. The problem is that for a handheld computer, and unlike its Mac OS X operating system on its computers, an iPhone runs a very phone-like version of an operating system: every process belongs to the "administrator", which is the person who turns on the phone. "This implies that a compromise of any application gives an attacker full access to the device," the researchers note in a preliminary PDF about the attack (securityevaluators.com). And that's bad.

Apple was told about the flaws on July 17, and has until August 2 to fix them; after that, the exploit will be made public and the million or so iPhones out there will be targets.

But is this a serious flaw? Certainly. It was discovered within three weeks of the phone going on sale, and as more and more people get hold of it - and especially once the method that Independent Security Evaluators used is made public - the attacks will increase. Smartphones, as is obvious from a little reflection, are more handheld computers than phones, and Apple's decision to let this one sync via iTunes - including the transfer of logs detailing how and why any iPhone application crashed - offers would-be hackers a lot more "attack surface" to hammer away at.