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iPhone fever begins to grow is the BBC’s headline, and it’s true there’s a growing anticipation, including up here in my office The fevered press clearly seem to adore the whole thing, as the filler piece on Radio 4’s Today just before 9am showed. James May and a technical journalist from ‘Stuff’ both seemed to quite like it.

John Humphrys really seems to revel in his curmudgeonly reputation when it comes to all things vaguely “modern”, but did seem to find the iPhone reasonably easy to get things done. He took a photograph, and seemed intrigued by gestures. He certainly wasn’t impressed by the queue that formed yesterday. As much as I’m never going to be that passionate about anything, and am largely bemused given the products been available for months if you really wanted it. But I still can’t help being ever so slightly impressed at the level of dedication that sees you sitting in Regent Street at 3am, avoiding talking to the drunks and bums, and trying to ensure your sleeping bag is as dry as possible. For a phone. That you could already have if you wanted.

Will I be getting one? Probably. I’ve got my PAC code on order from Orange, which should arrive soon. Getting it involved, I fear, upsetting somebody in a call centre somewhere in the north of England. After a delighfully bizarre exchange where she asked for my password. I said I didn’t know (I’d already keyed in a numerical passcode). She said it didn’t matter as “I can set it to one for you if you like”. I suggested that might be a bit counterproductive on the security front. I wanted a PAC, and had to be politely refuse various attempts to talk me through the ‘great offers’ I’m sure they have. To be honest, given it takes 5 days to get a PAC code, I quite like the idea of shopping around if the iPhone doesn’t work out.

I primarily need to check there’s a money back policy so that I can take it back if there’s no signal to be had at home, presuming of course I can’t find out from somebody beforehand with an O2 contract. I’ll certainly not be jailbreaking the phone. It seems a largely pointless exercise given the moving target that Apple present, plus I think the French unlocked ruling has some hope for us here in the UK (ie. Apple may have to offer unlocking codes, or just give up and open it). Primarily though I use Apple products because they make my IT life easier and more productive: I’ve no desire to return to the hacky-hacky Linux fiddling that I used to enjoy so much.

Frances is, you’ll be surprise to hear, unimpressed. £280 before the contract seems like £280 too much for “something you already have”, but my iPod is dying, I like the design, I like the interface, and, yes, I’m a fan boy.I suspect Apple will have done a good job with syncing too: This is where I’ve struggled immensely with all my previous phones. They just seem hopeless at managing contacts with my computer. Plus the free WiFi access with The Cloud, and WiFi access at home (for when Frances has my laptop ;-), should all be quite handy. 3G doesn’t impress me at all (I barely use my iSight on my computer, why would I want to video conference out and about?), and whilst the EDGE (2.5G) network is rumoured to be pants (presuming it exists outside of the M25), I’m not really too sure quite how much I’ll need it: GPRS has suited me just fine along the way to be honest.

So, yes, I’ve come around. Not that I think I really had that far to come mind…

This entry was posted on Friday, November 9th, 2007 at 11:25 am and is filed under Apple, Gadgets, Technology, UK. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.