Apple's iPhone 4 makes stellar world debut

SAN FRANCISCO – Apple fans mobbed stores in Japan, Europe and the United States in an iPhone 4 frenzy that promised blockbuster sales despite some opening day blemishes.

A customer looks at an iPhone 4 at the Apple Store 5th Avenue in New York June 24, 2010. [Agencies]

Hundreds of people queued up through the morning on Thursday outside the Apple store in downtown San Francisco, where one person reportedly sold a place in line for 400 dollars and another swapped a spot for an iPhone 4.

Some online complaints about iPhone 4 signal strength being hampered by a troublesome antenna design did not deter those in the queue.

"It's all rumors until we get them," Robert Freedman of San Francisco said as he waited to get his hands on an iPhone 4 to replace a model he had "beat the heck out of."

"People are walking out with them and saying they are using it and everything is fine," Freedman said.

Features luring people to the iPhone 4 include high-definition screens and "Face Time," which uses a forward facing camera to enable video chat.

"I've been an Apple head since I was a teenager," said Richard Polote, a 26-year-old San Francisco man who had been waiting outside the store since 2:30 in the morning.

"I feel pretty confident that whatever problems do arise, Apple will solve them in a timely fashion with upgrades or whatever."

Some new iPhone 4 owners were chagrined to discover that cupping their new smartphones so that their palms covered the lower left corners choked off the strength of the telecom service signals, according to videos posted online.

Based on the intense launch-day demand for the iPhone 4 the analyst thinks Apple will sell them as quickly as they can make them.

"Apple told me today they are building them as fast as they can," Baker said. "Expect a serious constraint on supply, which in turn will add to the hype of people desperately wanting to get one."

Whatever launch day sales figure Apple reports "is going to be huge," the analyst predicted.

In Paris, Senegalese businessman Bassirou Gueye joined some 350 people queuing before the opening of Apple's flagship store in the city, located in the chic underground shopping mall of the Louvre museum.

"I made a special trip to Paris to buy the iPhone 4. I'm interested in its high-tech features," said Gueye, a self-avowed Apple aficionado who already owns half a dozen brand-name devices.

Some buyers in France, however, reported problems activating their new phones because of technical problems with operator France Telecom.

In Germany, there were long queues at Apple stores and phone company Deutsche Telekom complained it did not have enough handsets to meet demand.

"By lunchtime iPhones in the high tens of thousands have already been sold. In Munich we have sold out," said Deutsche Telekom spokesman Dirk Wende.

Some 500 customers waited in line outside Apple's flagship Regent Street store in London when it opened its doors -- far more than those who queued for the launch of the iPad tablet last month.

Japan's eastern time zone put it first in line to sell the phone and hundreds braved sweltering humidity outside Apple's store in the Ginza district to get hold of the smartphone.

"I am truly amazed there were huge lines in Tokyo," Baker said. "It matches the original iPhone roll-out and that just blows me away."

The original iPhone launched in 2007 brought smartphones to the masses. Apple has sold more than 50 million of the handsets in the past three years.

But its latest version enters a crowded market full of rivals boasting bigger screens and running on Google's open-source Android operating system, which is more accessible to developers than Apple's tightly guarded system.

Sales of a white iPhone 4 model have been delayed to the second half of July because of unspecified manufacturing difficulties.

Carriers in the United States and France were forced to suspend early orders because of heavy demand. Apple said last week that it set a single-day record of 600,000 orders for the new smartphone.

The new iPhone will be available in 18 other countries in July and 24 more in August.

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G20: Fiscal challenges may threaten recovery

WASHINGTON: World leaders will warn this week against taking the global economic recovery for granted while also noting that the huge costs of stimulus can hurt long-term growth, a draft G20 document shows.

The Group of 20 (G20), which meets in Toronto this weekend, has won credit for preventing a global recession in 2008 from becoming a depression.

But as the economy recovers, G20 unity is fraying.
The group must still forge consensus on controversial topics such as how quickly to shrink government deficits, how best to strengthen banks so that they can withstand any new downturn, and how to harmonise financial regulatory reforms.

»It’s a question of getting the balance right« BANK OF CANADA GOVERNOR MARK CARNEY

 

The draft version of the summit communique, obtained by Reuters and dated June 11, reflected divisions over which policy priority ought to take precedence — supporting still-shaky growth or shrinking budget deficits.

Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney said governments must plan for austerity but not rush to tighten belts all at once.

“It’s a question of getting the balance right,” Carney said in an interview with Reuters Insider.

“Nobody should be looking to balance their budget next year. Nor should anybody be in a position where they think there’s no need to start laying out a plan to stabilise their debt position, the United States included.”

Europe’s simmering debt troubles are a reminder that when markets lose faith in governments’ ability to rein in spending, borrowing costs soar and countries are forced into swifter, harsher fiscal fixes.

While the economy looks healthier than it did when G20 leaders met in Pittsburgh in September last year, there are signs that the recovery may have hit a plateau.

Unemployment remains high in the US and Europe, the US housing market at the centre of the financial crisis is weak, and a gauge of European services activity cooled more than expected in June.

The G20 draft said the recovery was “uneven and fragile” and warned: “There is no room for complacency.”
At the same time, it said “fiscal challenges in many states are creating market volatility, and could seriously threaten the recovery and weaken prospects for long-term growth.”

The US has warned against withdrawing supports too soon, mindful of when the government slammed the brakes on spending in the 1930s, prolonging the Great Depression.

“We must demonstrate a commitment to reducing long-term deficits, but not at the price of short-term growth,” US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers wrote in the Wall Street Journal.

European countries, led by Germany, argue that fiscal restraint breeds confidence which in turn sustains growth.

An EU diplomat said fiscal targets proposed by Canada were too modest and some rich G20 countries should do more. — Reuters

UK population nears 62 million

Birth and death rates, rather than immigration, are the biggest growth factor for second year in succession

 

 

The number of births has fallen, but natural change still accounts for the bulk of the growth in the population figure. Photograph: Roger Bamber / Alamy/Alamy

 

The population of the UK reached nearly 62 million last year despite a second successive annual fall in net migration, according to figures published by the Office of National Statistics today.

The population rose by 394,000 from mid-2008 to reach 61.8 million at the end of June last year. The number of people in the UK has risen from 59.1 million in 2001, a reflection of fact that net migration and births outstripped deaths over most of the past eight years.

Last year was only the second time since 2001 that net migration was not responsible for the majority of the UK's population growth. The other was in 2007-8.

The bulk of the growth from mid-2008 to mid-2009 was due to natural change – the difference between births and deaths – which was 217,000. Migration accounted for 70% of population growth in 2001-2, while in 2008-9 natural change was responsible for 55% of growth .

Net migration – the difference between the number of immigrants and emigrants – fell 15,000 to 176,000 last year, but the total was still 23% above the 2001-02 figure of 143,000.

Natural change was down slightly on the previous year's figure but the number was still 250% higher than in 2001-2002, when 62,000 more births than deaths were recorded.

The number of deaths in the UK in 2008-9 remained at the same level as in 2007-8, but the number of births fell 4,000 to 787,000.

An ONS spokesman said: "Until mid-2008, the number of births was increasing partly due to rising fertility among UK-born women and partly because there were more women of childbearing ages due to inflows of female migrants to the UK. However the recent decline is driven by a decrease in the UK-born female population of childbearing age."

According to the data, women in their 20s and early 30s who are married are more likely to give birth than those who are cohabiting. But women aged 35 and above who were cohabiting showed fertility levels 58% higher than those who were married.

Last year's figures showed a 4,000 decrease in immigrants to 562,000 and an 11,000 increase in emigrants to 386,000.

The two successive falls in net migration, after years of increases, coincided with the introduction of the UK's points-based system for immigrants which limits the right to enter or remain in the UK to skilled workers. The introduction of the scheme by the Labour government in 2008 followed concerns that the far-right BNP party was winning support by playing on fears that immigration was stretching public services and pushing down the wages of the lowest paid.

The coalition government said today that new measures to curtail the number of migrants coming to the UK would reduce net migration dramatically.

The immigration minister, Damian Green, said: "We believe that immigration has been far too high in recent years, which is why the new government will reduce net migration back down to the levels of the 1990s – to tens of thousands rather than hundreds of thousands.

"Over the coming weeks and months the public will see us tackle this issue by introducing a wide range of new measures to ensure that immigration is properly controlled, including a limit on work permits, actions on marriage and an effective system of regulating the students who come here."

The 394,000 increase in the UK population last year amounts to a 0.6% rise, equivalent to the average annual rate of population growth since 2001. That compares to 0.3% each year between 1991 and 2001 and 0.2% each year between 1981 and 1991.
 
By Haroon Siddique

• Guardian.co.uk, Thursday 24 June 2010 19.03 BST
• Article history

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