Is this really a new iPhone 4?!
You may have read about how I got my Fortress iPhone 4 this morning.
I was in for another surprise (first surprise: actually getting the iPhone 4) soon after leaving the store: the first time I fired up the App Store, I was greeted with a password prompt from an unfamiliar email address. Hmm? I didn’t know an email address was required for activation of the iPhone by the Fortress staff… and my first iPhone 4 certainly did not have a strange email address waiting for me in the App Store.
Is this really a brand-new iPhone 4?
iPhone 4 & Fortress
I woke up way earlier than I intended to on a Saturday morning and thought, why not go down to Fortress for a stab at the iPhone 4? Armed with my Egg McMuffin breakfast, I arrived at 7:45am. It was quite hot as they made us line up outside, and this is what greeted me:
Fortress iPhone 4 line up
Over 2 hours later, Fortress employees finally showed up and started handing out “tickets”… luckily I ended up being number 70 out of 100, so I am just waiting for a call back from Fortress to pick up my phone.
Wasn’t impressed with people who cut in to join their friends right before they were handed their tickets, but what can you do? I just hope the people at the very end of the line were not affected.
DG store appears to have a small number of iPhone 4s in stock today as well, judging by the noticeably smaller line:
Even Pau wants a piece of the iPhone 4
Enough excitement for one day! Now I just need Fortress to call me back…
Fortress to sell iPhone 4 tomorrow (Aug 14)
Seems like Fortress is causing quite a stir with this ad!
It basically says “4, handset only, on sale tomorrow.”
A friend just called his local Fortress and they have confirmed it is for sale tomorrow.
I sold my iPhone 4
Here in Hong Kong the iPhone 4 is in extremely high demand.. and not just for us local Hong Kongers, but for many other countries within the Pacific region. Singapore was the only other Asian country to get an official iPhone 4 launch on July 30, so I bet there must be similar scenes there in the grey market. Phone shops here are (currently) paying upwards of $8,000 HKD for the 16gb iPhone 4, while $9,000+ is offered for the 32gb version.
I’ve just sold my iPhone 4 today and placed an order for the 32gb version on the Apple Store…
iPhone 4 Case Program – Hong Kong
If you purchase an iPhone 4 before September 30, 2010, you are eligible to receive an iPhone 4 Bumper or a select third-party case from Apple at no charge.
For some strange reason I thought this program was US-only (duh!)… I finally went to the App Store and downloaded the iPhone 4 Case Program app, and found that these are the cases on offer. These are shipping mostly 3-6 weeks.
- Apple iPhone 4 Bumper – Black
- Incase Snap Case for iPhone 4 – Smoke
- Incase Snap Case for iPhone 4 – Clear
- Belkin Shield Micra for iPhone 4 – Clear
- Griffin Motif iPhone 4 Diamonds/Smoke
- Griffin Reveal Etch iPhone 4 – Black/Black Graphite
- Speck Fitted Case iPhone 4 – Black Tartan
- Speck PixelSkin HD iPhone 4 – Black
- Griffin Perforated Silicone, iPhone 4, Black
- Griffin Perforated Silicone, iPhone 4, White
Great round up here of the cases available: iLounge
Here are the full terms and conditions: (original PDF is here)