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If, and it seems a very likely if, the VAT is raised to 20%+ on Tuesday, is it possible the pre-reserved people will have to pay extra? (at 20% VAT, the 16gb would be around £508, by my poor calculations).

I read my pre-reserved email but I can't see anything that states the price I reserved at, is the price I pay on the day...
Those who have already paid will be fine; also remember that the monthly payments will increase.

It must be shocking if O2's 3G network is better. I find O2's virtually unusable in most places. I'm under the impression that Vodafone is better.
Same here. I've been on O2 for nearly a year now and I've found that their 3G network is painfully slow and unreliable; and I'm not in the middle of nowhere. It's really annoying because as we all know the iPhone has a great browser, maps and loads of useful apps but I can't enjoy this when I'm out and about. The other week I was trying to find some restaurant info. in the area I was in and I just gave up - incredibly frustrating and they've taken a fortune out of me so far!
 
I just don't get how their can be a shortage tbh, Apple are not new to the market and will have a good idea on how to predict the sales figures for this quarter with the new iPhone 4. To me, its only done for that Sky News Headline - "Apple iPhone 4 SELLS OUT!! on day of release" to be honest its a joke and at our expense! There should have been loads more available for people to pre-order and we shouldn't be sat here having to even consider camping out over night just to get our hands on the new phone.

Not impressed on how Apple has handled this..... :(

And before anyone says "Guess this guy didn't get his pre-order" I actually didn't Pre-order because I want my iPhone direct fro T-Mobile on my upgrade day :)

/Rookie

I don't think it is as easy as you think it is. If there is demand for say 5 million on day one, then think about how those 5 million are going to be manufactured and how far back they would have had to start making them! Also, remember its not just the UK that is getting the iPhone on the 24th...
 
I don't mind. It's getting there early only for no-one to turn up seems like a waste of time LOL

This is the 1st time i’ve picked up an iPhone on launch day so was wondering how early to get there, but it doesn’t seem like there’ll be much of a queue, so just showing up for 8 will be fine.

Can’t see there being campers at 4am here :p
 
i think apple leave it late to prevent leaks as much as possible!

i reckon it was just gonna be the US, but once it emerged someone had found a new iphone they ramped it up!

think about how many parts were found after the whole gizmodo article? was nothing before was there!!!!!
 
According to this page it would appear that you can sign up to an O2, Orange or Vodafone contract in the Apple Stores. That's certainly what I'm planning on doing

Hopefully, the lack of info is very worrying! Vodafone don't know yet and the guy I spoke to at the Arndale Apple store said they probably won't know until the day. That is useless for me since I'll have queued up for hours and won't be able to start a contract with vodafone and I'll either have to sign up again with the useless o2 or leave and hope a vodafone shop has got some left!
 
They could have delayed launch to have more ready for launch day, would you prefer that?

But why would they? A good sales team would have predicted the demand and produced handsets accordingly, most of these phones will have been built before the keynote announcing them was given.... its not like they thought, "I know since we announced the iPhone 4 today lets start production of "X" amount of iPhones" - All this "shortage" does is cause Apple to get more media coverage as a marketing ploy...... come on this is Business 101 stuff!
 
Hopefully, the lack of info is very worrying! Vodafone don't know yet and the guy I spoke to at the Arndale Apple store said they probably won't know until the day. That is useless for me since I'll have queued up for hours and won't be able to start a contract with vodafone and I'll either have to sign up again with the useless o2 or leave and hope a vodafone shop has got some left!

Rang the arndale store today and spoke to the assistant manageress. She said you WILL be able to sign up to contracts in the apple store.
 
I have not all of the posts in this thread however those asking about getting microsims on o2 that have ordered their iphones directly from apple - o2 have added the following text in the info about getting a microsim:-

If you have pre-ordered iPhone 4 directly from Apple you can get an O2 micro sim from any O2 shop. Simply go to an O2 shop any time from Monday 21 June and bring along your pre-order confirmation email from Apple. You'll need to show it in order to get your micro sim.

Also those worried about their EXISTING data limits changing when shifting from standard sim to microsim need not worry. Many of the o2 customer services staff seem to have either no info are little info on this.

Existing tarrifs WILL NOT CHANGE. A sim swap carried out on their systems never results in a tarrif change it litterly is an exchange of sim serial numbers on their network (this is according to whats officially been published on o2's own website/blog/twitter feed).

For your Monthly plan to change O2 must have agreement from the customer or they breach their contract - when Orange and T-Mobile have done this in the past it has allowed customers to break free of their contract irrespective of the time remaining, and I very much doubt o2 will take this route as iPhones are now sim free and its as easy as ever to switch networks.
 
I don't think it is as easy as you think it is. If there is demand for say 5 million on day one, then think about how those 5 million are going to be manufactured and how far back they would have had to start making them! Also, remember its not just the UK that is getting the iPhone on the 24th...

Exactly my point though, a good sales team should know this and predict accordantly, if you "think" you are going to sell 5 million iPhones on day one then wouldn't logic be to produce more then that? The Apple team will have known what dead lines they had to meet and how long the production of "x" amount of iPhones takes so its really just simple math..... the only thing they could say is they underestimated the demand for the new device but come on! 1 its Apple and 2 its iPhone the demand was going to be huge and they should have been more prepaired for it with a larger stock of iPhones ready to be shipped, some people are getting orders that now have a 3-4 week waiting time.
 
From what i've read, not many people seem to be sticking with O2- do you reckon 6.30 will be early enough to queue when we have 2 O2 stores within 100 yards of each other?
 
If, and it seems a very likely if, the VAT is raised to 20%+ on Tuesday, is it possible the pre-reserved people will have to pay extra? (at 20% VAT, the 16gb would be around £508, by my poor calculations).

If the VAT is increased on Tuesday I'll rip off George Osborne's scrotum and beat him to death with it. Does he want us to go spiralling back into a recession? I understand the need to reduce our horrific national debt, but there are better ways to do it. Look at Roosevelt's 'priming the pump' after the crash of '29.

Regardless, the price you pay will be the price at the time you pay, not the time you reserved, so you would pay the higher VAT rate, should there be one.
 
Hi, Anyone in the UK had their iPhone shipped yet? or even the status go to "prepparing to ship". Mine still says not yet shipped. Is it just the US iPhones that have shipped so far?

Nope mine is still not yet shipped expected delivery 24th....im not worried yet as it seems the case with all UK orders.
 
If the VAT is increased on Tuesday I'll rip off George Osborne's scrotum and beat him to death with it. Does he want us to go spiralling back into a recession? I understand the need to reduce our horrific national debt, but there are better ways to do it. Look at Roosevelt's 'priming the pump' after the crash of '29.

Regardless, the price you pay will be the price at the time you pay, not the time you reserved, so you would pay the higher VAT rate, should there be one.

In addition to this I would be SHOCKED if any VAT rise come into effect immediately.
 
From what i've read, not many people seem to be sticking with O2- do you reckon 6.30 will be early enough to queue when we have 2 O2 stores within 100 yards of each other?

There is only 1 local O2 store in my area (Orange, Vodafone, CPW are all VERY near the O2 shop).

It's inside a shopping centre which hasn't decided when to open the doors yet. I'm going to head down for 6:45 ish and see what the situation is.

My local shop isn't the busiest of the O2 stores, but no one really knows what the situation is going to be like stock wise (Esp with all the other networks releasing on the same day).
 
Hi,

As I will be purchasing the iPhone 4 on Orange PAYG and Orange are not doing pre orders would I be able to just go into my local Orange on thursday and pick one up??
 
But why would they? A good sales team would have predicted the demand and produced handsets accordingly, most of these phones will have been built before the keynote announcing them was given.... its not like they thought, "I know since we announced the iPhone 4 today lets start production of "X" amount of iPhones" - All this "shortage" does is cause Apple to get more media coverage as a marketing ploy...... come on this is Business 101 stuff!

QFT, I don't know why people are so quick to defend apple.
 
Hi,

As I will be purchasing the iPhone 4 on Orange PAYG and Orange are not doing pre orders would I be able to just go into my local Orange on thursday and pick one up??

All of the Orange shops I've seen seem to be taking pre-orders or reservations. If that's the route you're going, it may be worth a pre 24th visit to one...
 
Exactly my point though, a good sales team should know this and predict accordantly, if you "think" you are going to sell 5 million iPhones on day one then wouldn't logic be to produce more then that? The Apple team will have known what dead lines they had to meet and how long the production of "x" amount of iPhones takes so its really just simple math..... the only thing they could say is they underestimated the demand for the new device but come on! 1 its Apple and 2 its iPhone the demand was going to be huge and they should have been more prepaired for it with a larger stock of iPhones ready to be shipped, some people are getting orders that now have a 3-4 week waiting time.

Whilst I'm not siding with Apple here, your argument seems to come down to basic economics. You say, 'if you "think" you are going to sell 5 million iPhones on day one then wouldn't logic be to produce more then that'. For a business, you are wrong. The logic is to produce less, because, as we know form the most basic rules of economics - as supply decreases and demand rises, prices rise. Which is why Apple can get away with charging such a huge some for a phone.
 
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