For too many weeks now I have complained about Apple and its iPhone, but let’s leave that in the past for the time being and move on.

Here is something I like about Apple, the design. You cannot help but admit it but the look of Apple products is something no one else can beat.

Take the iPod for example, quite simply an icon which many have tried to imitate but have failed to match.

Sleek and sexy can be two words to describe the mac, iPod, iPhone, touch, you name it it looks the part and yet pretty much anyone can afford their own piece of Apple.

It’s the one thing Apple do well and the one thing the need to keep doing well in order to stay ahead of the pack.

As of today I am the ‘proud’ owner of a 8gb iPhone. Now don’t get me wrong I didn’t actually buy the phone it came to me slightly by accident.

After reading my rants here on the usefullness of the iPhone, or rather the lack of it, I was contacted by someone at Apple challenging me to make use of the device for three months.

The first three months bills would be paid for me and if I decide I like it then it’s mine, although I will have to start paying the bill for myself.

So I took up the challenge and said why not. So today I took delivery of a new iPhone.

So far not to bad, I can’t say I am overly impressed, it’s like my Touch only with a few extra bells and whistles on it.

But I have found two advantages so far, the camera and the wordpress app on which I am writing this entry.

The next three months will be a tester, will the iPhone really change my mind or will it just make me more resolute in my feelings about it. Will I become even more of a Blackberry fan because of it or will I start to see the sense of it?

Who knows, but it will be something of a journey and an interesting one at that, not least for the fact it will be free for the first three months!

However I do see the sense in what they do which is why I brought an iPod Touch instead, it can do everything the iPhone can except make phone calls and do texts.

The other evening I downloaded the software update onto my iPod Touch so that I could have access to App Store, two hours later and a bit of swearing I was up and running and downloaded my Facebook app, the complete works of Shakespeare and the WordPress app, which means in future I can post anywhere at any time without the use of a computer. That being said I am posting today on my trusty old desktop.

Some people think the iPod Touch is the senseless bit of kit when you have the iPhone out there, but I would argue it is the iPhone that is the senseless bit of kit when the Touch is on the market.

Lets look at a few points to argue my case. The Touch is a one off cost of between £199 and £329 depending on the Gigabytes required and from then on it’s downhill all the way paying for your music as and when you want it and many apps are free with just a few paid for ones available.

Then there is the iPhone 3G. If you want one of these you may well get able to get the handset for free, but then you are looking at a minimum of £45 a month for a contract. If you want a cheaper monthly tariff you will be paying £99 for the handset followed by £30 a month…and this is just for the 8GB version of the phone.

I know we live in a day and age whereby our mobile phones have to do everything including the washing up, but surely in a time of economic uncertainty we should be looking at protecting our wallets a little rather than battering them every month with a luxury item. Yes the Touch is a luxury item, but it’s a one off luxury item which then doesn’t have the ongoing running costs associated with the iPhone if you don’t want it to.

I don’t hate the iPhone, I am just trying to see the sense in it when there is a gadget on the market in the form of the Touch which so obviously clashes with it. There is almost a feeling the Touch was seen as a necessary evil but isn’t really liked by the people at the top and if it did fail it wouldn’t be any great shakes to them.

I like my iPod Touch, I take it everywhere with me for music, e-mail, weather, the works. So faluire of the product isn’t a option for me.

But can someone please tell me how these two products can work together when they are so alike?

Their promise? to bring the cost of a single inline with the rest of Europe to just 74p (99 euros).

But these must be hard times for Apple as it has been decreed there will now be no price cut and prices will remain at 79p.

Apple of course blame the current economic status saying the change in the exchange rate between the Euro and the Pound means that 99 euros is now worth 79 pence….funny that.

However Apple weren’t so quick to say that if the exchange rate changed again that music lovers would have to pay more than 79 pence in future.

And to top it all if you live in the US you pay just 99 cents to download a track which at the magical current exchange rate is just 49 pence!

So in short, if you live in Europe or the UK Apple won’t let you save any money on the cost of buying music, but if your an American then save away because they can get their money back through the European market.

Well like most other people iTunes is my music player of choice.

But I am getting a little bet fed up with it, not because it isn’t any good, but because of the simple reason of constantly having to download the current update.

Yesterday, my copy of iTunes on my laptop computer requested that i download the new update, iTunes 7.7. So I duely accepted the challenge (and a challenge it is!) and downloaded. No problem there. The problem then came when I needed to install said softwear to make the update. I still haven’t won the challenge and 7.7 is still waiting to be uploaded.

The now is when I try and upload the softwear, my computer asks me ‘link’ it to an application, something it has never done before. So I look a little bemused for a while and then try to ‘link’ it hoping it might work. Then I have to try again…and again…and again.

It still hasn’t been uploaded and I still can’t make my iPod Touch updates.

I have a day off tommrrow, so perhaps I’ll be using it to finally crack this nut!

I know it isn’t the best thing to say in a blog about Apple, but I will lay my cards on the table and be honest with you all.

When Apple announced the launch of the iPhone 3G I did think about changing alleigance…for about five minutes and decided to stick with my BlackBerry for some very simple reasons.

1. I like being able to choose the network my phone is with: Don’t get me wrong I have no problems with O2, in fact I had a pay as you go phone with them for many years, but I do want to be able to choose which network I sign up to rather than being told who I am signed up to.
2. The iPhone is a mugging target: lets face it, the iPhone is a nice bit of kit and that’s where the problem comes in, someone else will think the same but decide they don’t want to pay for one themselves and try to steal yours instead.
3. It’s too big: I’m sorry but it is simply too big. I thought we had come away from the days when mobile phones looked like a house brick but it seems Apple have taken a step backward and decided that because bricks are ‘retro’ they must be back in fashion.
4. The contracts are too expensive: I have a choice of tariff with my BlackBerry, with an iPhone the cheapest will be £50 plus before you add on the cost of the phone on top.
5. The touch screen: For the majority of people I will admit this is the reason to have an iPhone, touch screens are easy to use but consider this. Touch screens get dirty easily and they can be easy to break and crack which doesn’t make them the most durable machines. Saying that if they were made to be more durable then I would think twice about my stance with them
6. Apple are computer specialists and BlackBerry are mobile phone specialists: I don’t go to B&Q to buy a loaf of bread so why would I go to Sainsburys to buy a bag of nails and a piece of 2 by 4?
7. The hype: I do actually think there is too much hype surrounding this piece of kit to the point where it isn’t really going to be taken seriously outside of the Apple nerd circle (which I do occasionally count myself as part of) and therefore won’t really be seen as anything more than a music player with the capability of making a phone call
8. The possible launch of the rumored BlackBerry 9500 (Thunder): While there is little information about what it will look like or the capabilities it will have it looks to topple the iPhone from the pedastal it has been placed on by Apple execs and fans who think only Apple is good. For those tired of the Apple hype the BlackBerry could be the antidote to the iPhone cult. And the advantage for the iPhone…it may actually make it respectable as a business machine rather than a up market music player.

Above all however I won’t be getting an iPhone simply because I like my BlackBerry too much, I liked them before they were even fashionable here in the UK. They are reliable, sturdy, packed with technology you actually use and easy to use even if you have never picked up one before.

So while I may love you dearly Apple, I’ll pass on the iPhone for the time being until you can convince me otherwise.

It seems fans of the iPhone in the UK did the usual British thing of queuing all night to be the first to get hold of the new device, but when the flagship Apple Store in Regent Street and o2 themselves were hit by a technical glitch many customers were left wanting.

According to O2 the problems have been dealt with and fans can now get their hands on a new set…if they had any that is, stores have already sold out.

But fear not new stocks are expected soon, so if you are feeling bereft of your new iPhone then you won’t have to wait long before you can get your sticky little paws onto one!

However is this the shape of things to come? the might that is Apple now vulnerable ‘technical’ problems, or is this just a ploy to make Microsoft think that Apple has an achilies heal when it is in fact as strong and invincible as ever?

After nearly an hour downloading, I tried to switch my iPod back on to see if all had gone well, and quite simply it hadn’t.

I have now spent the last hour restoring the factory settings to my machine and have lost my capability to send and receive e-mails, weather, notepad, stocks and the thing that pisses me off the most…all my contacts, over 200 of them!

I have just the simple 8gb version of the Touch and it does seem to be a bit of a coincidence in the light of the newer, bigger 32gb version just recently being released, something I cannot afford and at the moment I don’t really want to upgrade to.

So is someone making a really bad joke here, because if they are I would like to to restore at their own cost all the settings I have now lost which were the most useful to be aside from actually listening to music on the thing.

Thanks Apple for buggering my machine up, I may still want a Mac but please down let the core go rotten and spoil the Apple experience, you’ll never be forgiven.

In the meantime, get my machine sorted and have fun resetting 200 names and addresses back into the contacts book!

But there is one thing Apple haven’t done yet and something I think they should get into….digital photography for both the amateur and professional.

Everyone knows that the self respecting photo journalist uses Apple hardware and QuarkXpress to download and create their work, so why not take that one stage further with a Apple Digital Camera?

It can be something simple, a point and shoot type camera if they want it to be, but this is Apple after all, it can be something innovative, something that the professional will want to use just as much as the average Joe in the street.

So why haven’t we seen an Apple Digi camera yet? perhaps Apple are too tied up with reinventing the wheel in the form of the MacBook Air. Or perhaps they just hadn’t thought of it yet.

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Very nice indeed, if you happen to have £35 a month plus the cost of the calls and the phone itself, but what about those of us who live on Pay As You Go Phones?

I am one of those people, a Pay As You Go, O2 customer and therefore a potential iPhone owner. However there is one problem, I don’t have a great credit rating and therefore I would be knocked back for any contract for any mobile phone carrier. Personally I’m not bothered by that, PAYG does everything I want it to when I want it to.

So even though I can afford to buy the iPhone I’m excluded from being able to run it because of the contract obligations.

So why isn’t the iPhone on PAYG? it would open up a huge customer base for O2, people would come flocking to them willing to pay out the £269 it costs to buy the handset in the first place.

It’s possible (and of course I could *never* say this for certain!) that for both Apple an O2 it wouldn’t be profitable, after all there’s no money in us commoners. But lets look at the facts, most PAYG customers spend more each month on their calls, texts and web browsing than most pay monthly customers. These days the only people who really go on pay monthly are the business people, the rest of us literally pay as we go.

Then there is the other possible reason…Apple don’t want just anyone to own the iPhone! They want to keep it exclusive they want to keep it locked to a single carrier in order to maintain it’s exclusivity.

This is not a phone they want everyone to have, after all everyone owns an iPod, it’s no longer cool to own one, but own an iPhone and you’re amoung an elite, and they want to keep it that way!