RAIN and shine, the queues formed around ComCentre at Exeter Road last weekend as thousands of people lined up to buy Apple's iPhone 3G.

As in other countries, the demand for the phone was high. SingTel sold iPhones 3Gs non-stop for almost 24 hours last Friday when it first went on sale.

Even though customers were given appointments, they still had to queue between one and three hours before they could buy the phone.

No cellphone has seen a launch like this. At 12.01am last Friday, SingTel's group chief executive Chua Sock Khoon and its Singapore head Allen Lew cut the ribbon to signal the arrival of the phone to Singapore.

Droves of customers rushed in to a big showroom which had over 80 cashier points to ensure that customers were attended to quickly.

At the backend, SingTel had to ensure that wireless bandwidth and 3G capacity fully blanketed the ComCentre area so that users who had their iPhones in hand could start surfing and making calls.

On the Web, the first local iPhone 3G FAQs (frequently asked questions) went up on hardwarezone.com last weekend. Apple had already sold about 6 million of the first version of the iPhone worldwide.

The latest model hit the shelves on July 11 in 22 places including Hong Kong, Australia and England.

That weekend, one million iPhone 3G were sold.

Over 10 million downloads from the online App Store were downloaded.

Marc Einstein, senior industry analyst with research company Frost & Sullivan, said that the iPhone 3G does drive mobile data usage.

"For example, the mobile carrier O2 in England found that the 2.5G cellphone users of the original iPhone downloaded more data than 3G users without the iPhone.

"So yes, the device is very conducive to driving 3G traffic. I think iPhone 3G users here would use it to download ringtones and games and do general surfing.

"You won't see a lot of people using it to access their office e-mail messages. This market I think still belongs to the Blackberry devices."

Apple's latest phone has about 100 new features.

Here are some of them:

¤ Write Chinese characters. You can switch between 21 keyboard layouts. The Chinese one allows you to write the characters with your finger.

¤ Science students would enjoy this. Go to calculator function, turn the phone sideways and it slips into scientific calculator mode. No need to buy another scientific calculator.

¤ Save and share photos. If you see an image of David Beckham on a Web page that you like, tap on it and the photo will be saved in Photos. Once there, you can e-mail it to anyone you like.

¤ Get corporate e-mail. Worried about missing that important e-mail message that your customer sent you when you left work early for dinner with your boyfriend? The iPhone 3G allows you to access corporate e-mail based on Microsoft Exchange securely.

¤ Try new software. Now that there is a Singapore iTunes App Store, you can download free or buy software on low-calorie diets, exercise routines, recipes, tip calculators, relaxing sounds and sweet melodies, recorder for memos and interviews and, of course, games.

¤ The good news: Of the over 800 applications available on App Store, 200 are free.

This story was first published in The Straits Times Digital Life on 27 August 2008.

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