- guardian.co.uk, Friday July 11 2008 10.22 BST
David Suen holds up his new iPhone 3G. Photograph: Sang Tan/AP
Apple's new iPhone 3G went on sale this morning, as the Californian company's latest attempt to capture the public imagination.
The first UK iPhone 3G was sold at 8.02am, in a stunt designed to promote the O2 network, which has an exclusive deal to provide iPhone service in the UK.
Around 150 people lined up outside the Apple store on London's Regent Street for the chance to get their hands on the new gadget. First in the queue was David Suen, a 27-year-old student at the London School of Economics, who said he had bought his place in the line for "less than £50" from a man who had arrived at 11am yesterday.
"I've been waiting for this since the last iPhone because of 3G," he said. "It's very exciting."
Suen is not alone in holding off buying the gizmo because of its previous lack of higher-speed 3G connectivity. That had been a common complaint among European consumers, who are used to subsidised handsets with faster connections than those in America.
Both Apple and O2 hope that the new, faster model — which also incorporates satellite navigation — can drive up sales. The network and Carphone Warehouse, the only independent retailer that will stock the phone in the UK, have both reported greater consumer interest in the new device than its previous model, which went on sale in Britain last November.
Not all customers will be able to buy a handset, however, with O2 warning last night that it only had limited stock.
"On average, we will only have a few dozen iPhone 3Gs per store (some stores more, some stores less, dependant upon store size so we expect to sell out quickly)," the company warned on its website.
The new iPhone also has access to a new online shop, which sells downloadable applications including games, web tools and even full copies of the Bible.
The store launched yesterday amid much confusion, with customers around the world able to buy applications but not to download them, because the new version of the iPhone software had not yet been made available.
