Its seems odd talking about 'the original iPhone' when its only been on the market for just a year and to most seems new anyway.
But the clever people at Apple are intent on staying ahead of Nokia and Blackberry and have updated the iPhone to make it more user friendly.
The real reason why the new version may be more popular than it's predecessor though is because of the price.
The new devices start at £100 and Apple are confident this will lead to increased sales of iPhone handsets.
The iPhone was first launched last year and was widely criticised for it's support for slower 2G networks only.
Now Apple boast that the new 3G phone is "three times faster" downloading content over a mobile network compared to the original device.
But despite the optimism there's growing concern that the iPhone could be an expensive flop outisde the US.
The price of the latest handset smacks of desperation say iPhone critics and while customers are happy with the low cost others wonder why they forked out so much for the original iPhone if it's so inferior to the latest model.
Telecommunications business analyst John Delaney, speaking to the BBC last week, said " The fact that it's cheaper is interesting. But how is it going to be cheaper? If Apple is cutting the retail price, it will drastically hit their margins if they sell volume. If the lower price is through operator subsidy they are becoming a bit more humble. But thats not clear at this stage. Either way, they are going for volume. But they have a big mountain to
climb outside of the US."Apple has a 20% share of the US smartphone market but only 5% worldwide with Nokia and Blackberry clearly dominating.
The other selling point of the new iPhone relates to it's in-built GPS satellite navigation system.Lets hope for Apple's sake it points them in the right direction in a market where theres increased competition and decreasing disposible income.
