Mousetrap: iPhone hippies queue for Apples

O2 customers determined to get their hands on Apple's new 3G iPhone caused the network's website to crash this morning as they rushed to pre-order the new device.

Pre-orders opened at 8am this morning, and within an hour the website had buckled under what an O2 spokesman described as phenomenal demand for the new iPhone, which goes on sale on Friday.

O2 said that 200,000 people had already registered their interest in the device online, but when pre-ordering - which will allow applicants to have the device delivered - began this morning, the site experienced some difficulties.

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"Unfortunately we have had a few problems this morning - there was an unprecedented demand at 8am when the pre-ordering went live, but the site is working again now," an O2 spokesman said at lunchtime.

O2, which is the sole network on which the iPhone is available in the UK, said that the initial order of new iPhones had been split roughly in half between pre-orders, which can only be made online, and stores, which will begin selling the device on Friday. The company declined to specify how many phones it had ordered.

Separately, Carphone Warehouse, which also began taking pre-orders on its website today, said that the number of people who had registered their interest in the 3G iPhone prior to release was ten times greater than for the old device. It declined to release details of the number of applicants.

The 3G iPhone - a combined phone, web browser, and music and video player rolled into one - will go on sale in 70 countries by the end of the year, and promises faster downloads speeds and better compatability with e-mail programs such as Microsoft Outlook than its predecessor.

The new device will also be subsidised by operators, like other high-end phones but unlike the previous version, which customers had to buy outright for £269 in the UK. O2 customers on £45-per-month contracts will be able to get the 8GB iPhone free, while for £30 and £35 a month customers, it will cost £99.

Operators are hoping that the new pricing will increase demand for the device, which Steve Jobs, Apple's chief executive, acknowledged had been too expensive for many customers when it was released in June last year.

According to industry sources, Apple had been hoping to sell as many 600,000 iPhones in Europe last year, but the figure was more likely to have been between 300,000 and 350,000. In the UK, O2 was forced to cut the cost of the device to £100 in April, and in Germany, T-Mobile made an even more drastic cut, from €399 to €99.

The 3G iPhone is also expected to face tough competition from other manufacturers such as RIM, the BlackBerry maker, and HTC, the Taiwanese company, both of which are due to release new high-end phones onto the market this summer.

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