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Todays iPhone 2 Article

Apple iPhone 3G Goes on Sale Today

(AP) - Apple's new discount iPhone 3G hits Apple and AT&T stores today nationwide.

Meantime, the new cheap iPhone model went on sale in the Asia-Pacific region earlier today, making its debut in Japan amid swirling smoke after a 30-second countdown chanted by hundreds of people lined up, some for days, snaking around the block.

The celebration at Japanese carrier Softbank Corp.'s store, which included a digital clock display ticking away over the entrance, was part of a global rollout in 22 nations of Apple Inc.'s much-hyped iPhone News, or third-generation, wireless connecting cell phone. The latest iPhone is an upgrade of the model that went on sale last year in the United States and several other nations.

Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong were the other Asia-Pacific locations getting the new phone. In the United States, phones will be available at 8 a.m. in each time zone.

In Tokyo, Taichiro Nakamura, a 28-year-old filmmaker, was all smiles as he showed off his brand new iPhone, and said the first thing he did when he got his new iPhone News was call his girlfriend.

"I'm so happy," he said, adding that he had the iPod Touch portable music player and decided he wanted the iPhone, too. "I've been interested for some time."

By Friday morning, the line that had been growing for days had reached about 1,000 people long. Signs went up that said the store had stopped accepting applications.

Exactly how many iPhones will be available is uncertain, fueling the hype about the gadget.

"This is the year that the cell phone becomes an Internet-connecting machine," Softbank President Masayoshi Son told the crowd at the countdown ceremony.

The iPhone is designed to browse the Web in much the same way computers do. The networks promoted by Japanese carriers, such as "i-mode" from NTT DoCoMo, are more closed than the Web. Such systems have allowed carriers to control services and charge fees.

Tomohiko Katsu, a 38-year-old banker, said he has rarely lined up for any product in his life but wanted to make sure he got the iPhone and got in line Thursday afternoon.

"All the features come packed in a compact machine," he said. "It's really small for a mobile PC device."

Katsu shrugged off the criticism already popping up from some Japanese that the iPhone News may be a bit heavy and bulky compared to cell phones common in this gadget-loving nation.

The iPhone's capabilities are less revolutionary here, where people have for years used tech-heavy local phones for restaurant searches, e-mail, music downloads, reading digital novels and electronic shopping. They tend to shrug off foreign models such as those from Nokia Corp.

A report this week by Mizuho Securities Co. said the iPhone had the potential to get Japanese commuters to surf the Web more over reading or listening to music. The report said the iPhone's arrival could also change the relationship between manufacturers and carriers. Traditionally, carriers have had considerable leverage over manufacturers.

The latest Japanese cell phones have two key features absent on the iPhone � digital TV broadcast reception and the "electronic wallet" for making payments at stores and vending machines equipped with special electronic readers.

But they don't have the iPhone's nifty touch screen or glamour image.

Hundreds queued outside stores in New Zealand's main cities got their iPhone News earlier at midnight Thursday.

"Steve Jobs knows what people want," Web developer Lucinda McCullough told the Christchurch Press newspaper, referring to Apple's chief executive. "And I need a new phone."

There has been some grumbling about prices in New Zealand, where Vodafone, the only mobile provider selling the iPhone there, is charging between NZ$199 ($151) and NZ$549 ($416) for the new iPhone unit and NZ$250 ($190) a month for a minimum two-year plan.

The iPhone News is selling in Japan for 23,040 yen ($215) for the 8-gigabyte model, while the 16-gigabyte version costs 34,560 yen ($320).

Apple plans to sell its 8-gigabyte iPhone for $199 in the United States and the 16-gigabyte version for $299. The company, based in Cupertino, Calif., says it has sold about 6 million iPhones since last year. It has said its goal is to sell 10 million by the end of 2008.

Source: http://www.wxyz.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=60abb049-b3dd-4ac9-a5d1-78cdc1d4e347&rss=785

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