i(have mine) – thousands pay ‘tribute’ to Jobs

The iPhone 4S, described by its makers as “the best iPhone ever”, has already proved itself to be more popular before its release than any other Apple product, with pre-orders topping one million in a single day.

Some customers camped out for days while others arrived the night before to be among the first through the doors when the must-have smartphone went on sale at 8am in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, France, Germany and Japan.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak began queuing outside the Apple store in Los Gatos, California, at 2pm local time on Thursday, even though he had two phones on order.

“The long wait begins. I’m first in line,” Mr Wozniak tweeted.

Some who bought the new phone said they were doing so “for Steve”, in honour of Mr Jobs who died on 5 October, the day after Apple unveiled its new phone, and because it was the last Apple product he was involved with. One such customer was Lei Fan, 34, an electrical designer, from Edinburgh, who said: “Steve’s products were used by billions of people. He created products we didn’t have. Who could do that now?

“I have a BlackBerry, but this is much better because the BlackBerry is quite slow online.”

Apple fans in Sydney, Australia, who queued for three days, set up a shrine to Mr Jobs complete with a candle and photo so the company’s founder “could be part of the launch”.

New features are the 8MP camera and Siri, a so-called intelligent assistant which allows customers to send texts by speaking into the phone, although early users have discovered that many of its functions, including maps and restaurant information, are not yet working outside the United States.

It also includes the iCloud – a service which synchronises content across multiple devices.

Luke Peters, editor of technology magazine T3, said Apple has had problems upgrading existing iPhone 4 users to the new IOS5 operating system this week.

“It’s a bit unfortunate what’s happened with BlackBerry but it seems like Apple haven’t been without their problems with the upgrading from the previous IOS,” he said.

“It’s an interesting time for technology at the moment but today proves people are interested in tech and they’re willing to come out to get their hands on the latest kit.”

The launch of the iPhone 4S came during a turbulent week for rival BlackBerry, which sparked widespread anger following a technical failure which left millions of its customers unable to access e-mail or internet services for more than three days.