The iPhone purchase was inevitable this weekend, and it’s just as good as I hoped it would be. This really is a game-changer, especially when Apple opens it up for third party developers.

I got mine from a Carphone Warehouse, where the experience wasn’t as polished as the device. In particular they – or at least the salesman in my nearest branch – were attempting to sell their hugely expensive insurance (just shy of £12 a month) to iPhone buyers, to cover theft, loss and damage.

I said I wouldn’t need any – I’ve got household insurance that would give me the same cover. The saleman’s retort was that, while my household insurance might be able to give me the replacement value of the phone, I wouldn’t be allowed to buy a new iPhone – unless I took out their insurance, which was the only one to allow replacement of the device. Yet that’s not true – at least, according to the apologetic woman on Carphone Warehouse’s insurance hotline.

I’ve yet to fully work out what Apple’s (or O2’s) replacement policy is. I don’t think it’s as was described to me in-store. What I do know is that Carphone Warehouse was fined heavily last year by the Financial Services Authority for mis-selling insurance policies on phones.

At the time Charles Dunstone, the company’s founder and CEO, claimed the company took “every aspect of service and administration very seriously.” But he said the financial regulator’s fine was “a bit like a sledgehammer to crack a nut.”

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