The number is 21

Apple iPhone 3G launch on 11 July 2008 at 21 countries

Yesterday (11 July) Apple's iPhone 3G started selling at 2221 countries, the first country selling iPhone is New Zealand, then Asia, and follow by Europe and America.

As usual, media reports iPhone 3G as an important news, some TV reported the event at the very beginning of the news.

People still crazy queuing to buy an iPhone, but may be not in US. As reported a few people stated to queue up in-front of New York 5th Avenue Apple store, but these people are not Apple fanatics, they are from organization to support organic farming (refer here). May be they just came to catch some media attention.

The other reason is, iPhone 3G is just about one year after Apple start selling the first version of the their iPhone in US. For other countries iPhone 3G is the first time for its official launch, many stores start opening at 0:01 midnight to sell the Apple iPhone 3G.

Long iPhone 3G queue at Wellington.
Originally uploaded by mangee

More photo here and here.

iPhone always tie up with the celco operator, it was first launched June 2007 in United State only, must be activated through AT&T network. Hackers able to jailbreak the phone to work with other network, but you are not able to update the firmware officially through Apple support.

Definitely there are iPhone lovers and there are iPhone haters. You might like it for its outlook, design, the huge 3.5" display or the coverflow (virtually flip through album to choose songs). You might hate it for hard to type in the virtual keyboard, too many functions or hard to look for name in the contact list. Apple iPhone 3G launch, is the news you should never miss.

The twenty one countries which launch iPhone 3G on 11 July 2008, as listed in Apple website is:

1. Australia
2. Austria
3. Belgium
4. Canada
5. Denmark
6. Finland
7. Germany
8. Hong Kong
9. Ireland
10. Italy
11. Japan
12. Mexico
13. Netherlands
14. New Zealand
15. Norway
16. Portugal
17. Spain
18. Sweden
19. Switzerland
20. UK
21. USA

As you can see from the above list, is 21 countries, but some news reported as 22 countries, even stated in wikipedia as 22 countries. Asia countries are Japan and Hong Kong, countries like Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia is not on the list. Singapore will be the next round to launch iPhone, and rumor says iPhone will be launched in Taiwan soon but was not confirmed officially by Apple.