Finally! (Sorry, I should have probably posted this positive story as quickly as I posted the previous negative one)

I popped back to my local Apple Store on Saturday morning; they mailed me on Friday evening to say they'd be open early on Saturday. True to their word they were open and able to acutally sell the iPhone this time. In fact I was in and out in around 25 minutes. For all the queues they'd seen the day before (they said most of their product launches went much better) I only heard one customer with raised voice; Apple appear to have escaped finger pointing on this occasion as clearly they weren't entirely at fault, and for once the Great British Public have realised that shouting at the person behind (or in the case of the Apple Store next to) the counter, isn't always necessary.

Truth be told they were a little bit late opening early, but they did have the courtesy to say hello when we met in the Starbucks queue and promised to be open just as soon as....

Anyway I'm now the proud owner of a 16GB 3G iPhone in (wait for it)...white; I figured the white would be less likely to show up the finger prints, would look better with the accessories (white power cord, white ear buds etc) and besides, everyone was telling/expecting me to go for black. I couldn't do that cause Free is the New Black and what would that make Black?

So what do I think?

Coming from a Nokia E61 on a PAYG Vodafone SIM the most obvious point of moving is to have a phone with mobile internet (to sum up 3G/Edge/AwayFromHome WIFI) without the pain of paying through the nose for data.. For example in the last 5 days of using the E61, I used up around £10 of PAYG credit on 10-20 texts and using the 3G connection as and when I fancied (that invovled four 15 minute train journeys and a 4 hour wait at the Apple Store). On the 02 contract I've got 500 pre-paid texts 600 voice minutes and all the data I can eat without making myself sick for £35.

The sign of a good contract is when your girlfriend (1) doesn't say "Eeek, how much? Well it's your money, you can do what you like with it." (2) does say (to her brother) "I might fancy one of those iPhones myself, it's only a little more than what I'm paying at the moment."

The integration with the Mac is seemingly seemless. My Google Mail and Sun email accounts appeared on the iPhone up on first Sync, my iCal calendar likewise (iSync worked well with the Nokia but iTunes and iCal are even better).

Probably the most under mentioned USP is that the software on the phone is maintained and developed. On my E61 I had to jump through hoops to get a firmware update onto the phone (and even then the chances of bricking the thing were significant -- had I not had an unlocked phone in the first place I probably wouldn't have risked it). With iPhone Apple (and now Developers) are providing real software updates and addressing RFEs in a way the mainstream mobile market hasn't really seen before. That made the purchase worthwhile aside from any other benefits.

Downside?

Still making my mind up about the battery-life. Using it as a phone with Edge access will probably be the way to ensure good battery life. I don't need or want to use it a my primary email client or browser (but it's nice to have that option wherever you find yourself wanting to browse, email or IM).

A car charger will probably be essential when TomTom or TeleNav get their GPS software on board (the much mentioned License restriction to the use of Google Maps by third party Apps doesn't prevent these two vendors delivering as they obviously have their own map data. However I tried the Google Maps GPS pinpointing from in the car and it was very good; clearly there is no underlying issue with the antenna size (which had also been much mentioned).

So if you hear the sound of a light sabre in or around a Sun office or behind you in the queue at the train station that might just be me (or one of the million others)!