The UK launch of the iPhone on Friday evening at hundreds of Carphone Warehouse outlets should have been a retail goldmine.

Instead, it was a shambles, according to PC Advisor, with many shoppers unable to get their hands on Apple's over-hyped phone thanks to Carphone's payment system crashing. Oh dear, this isn't what you need when the Apple bigwigs are in town and just about every TV station and journalist is zeroed in on the event like trigger-happy snipers.

For the first hour, or so, it is reported that cold and hungry shoppers couldn't flex their flexible friends since the Chip and PIN system crashed in many Carphone outlets. In the end, shoppers were finally allowed to pay cash - something not generally allowed by Apple for iPhone sales.

The problem was sorted out within the hour and not all stores were affected but, it's hardly the iPhone shopping frenzy Apple has been used to elsewhere.

More importantly, did Carphone make its own target of 10,000 sold in 4 hours?-Martin Lynch