The SMS Text News iPhone has arrived!

Well it’s all happening today.

Express thanks must go to o2 who have sent me over an iPhone 3G to review. I have it in my hand and it is more solid, more desirable, … just better than the 2G iPhone.

Here then is a quick and dirty picture of it (taken, with a bit of personal ceremony, with a 2G iPhone camera):

Expect a fuller perspective shortly.

Suffice to say that when you take a look at the Apple iTunes Application Store, it’s all… slowly, ever so slowly, happening, this mobile thing.

I spotted the Truphone app, the ShoZu app, the Wine Lover application, the Horroscope app…

There’s a degree of fake smilery to be had when it comes to o2 (and Carphone Warehouse) beset with technical problems on today, iPhone day. It’s not good. But, it is unprecedented. It’ll maybe even make the evening news here in the UK. If it does then I think it’s all-news-is-good-news. The iPhone and Apple cachet cancels out disappointment pretty quickly. Whatever the launch day spluttering, there’s clearly a lot of demand:

What’s very exciting is the feedback that I’m getting from people, not traditionally iPhone users. The experience that an iPhone can offer your average normob (and not your highly attuned SMS Text News reading mobile geek) is so powerful, so compelling, that I reckoned the market would be overflowing with iPhone demand after the 2G launch last year. But the pricing was all wrong. It’s much better now… so I just can’t wait to see if, very quickly, the market in the UK will segment, between the haves and the have-nots.

That is, those who have a decent, exciting, easy, seamless mobile (and internet) experience and the have nots — the Sony Ericsson-wielding Great Unwashed who can phone and text and occasionally use the shitty shitty mobile internet.

So I’ll have my experience of the new iPhone up shortly. If you’ve just got yourself one, mail me over your thoughts and we’ll publish.