Even before Apple’s iPhone 3G hits stores across much of Europe on July 11, the highly anticipated handset has already run into a few problems. On July 7, a mad rush of British consumers looking to preorder the phone with network operator O2 caused the company’s Web site to crash. “We’ve never seen any mobile device create [such] excitement,” says Ronan Dunne, O2’s chief executive in Britain.

As consumers prepare for the iPhone launch, Apple and its telecom

partners, such as France’s Orange and Germany’s T-Mobile, are banking on similar surges in demand. That would mark a change from the first-generation iPhone, which was only a modest success in the Old World. When it was launched last November, Europeans were less enthusiastic than their U.S. counterparts, chiefly considering the iPhone’s price was high and it used slower, second-generation mobile technology, which put it behind multimedia 3G phones from the […]

Orginal post by Top Tech News