iPhone: The long wait is over
2008-09-25 13:25
Cape Town - The long-awaited Apple iPhone is expected to be launched in South Africa on Friday by Vodacom, the country's exclusive distributor of the 3G phone.
Although Vodacom Group's Group Communications Manager Marie-Louise Esterhuizen did not want to officially confirm the local release date with News24, it is an open secret that the big day will be 26 September.
Customers who pre-ordered the iPhone from Vodacom reportedly received emails to inform them of the release date and leaflets have been handed out by shops trading in Vodacom products, also announcing the iPhone's release date.
International launch
Furthermore, various blogs and websites have been abuzz with discussions around the release date of the hotly awaited communications device.
South Africans had been forced to wait for months to lay their hands on their own iPhone.
The phone was launched internationally on 11 July 2008 and the SA launch was originally expected to follow later in July.
New Zealanders were the first to be able to buy the phone.
They were followed shortly by Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Britain, the US and France.
No music downloads
Despite activation problems that frustrated thousands of buyers, Apple sold more than 1 million iPhone 3G cellphones on the launch weekend.
The new iPhone 3G updates the previous iPhone with much faster connection speeds and a built-in GPS, but many analysts believe the most significant update is the new software that allows users access to thousands of applications developed by third parties and available through Apple's online store.
These applications include games, photo-sharing and mobile versions of Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and eBay.
While local customers will reportedly not be able to download music on their iPhones, they will still have access to Apple's online store to download other applications.
New rival
In the meantime, Google has unveiled its rival to iPhone in New York on Tuesday.
The T-Mobile G1 phone, informally known as the Google phone, is built by Taiwanese firm HTC and has a touch-sensitive screen, a computer-like keyboard, high-speed internet browsing, Wi-Fi, e-mail and SMS texting and uses Google's new Android operating system.
It can also run applications such as Google Maps, Gmail and YouTube.
Watch a guided tour of the new iPhone here.
- News24