Which mobile phone provider is nicest to the Apple fanboys

I think that the iPhone looks like a nice phone, but I am not personally tempted to shell out serious money for a phone which is entirely locked down (and I am very happy with my current Android phone). However, many of my friends are serious apple fanboys and since today is the first day that the new iPhone 4 is being officially sold in Ireland, many have been twittering all day about the relative length of the queues in different shops.

In the USA, many iPhone fans are less than thrilled with the fact that they can only be bought with an expensive AT&T service contract (apparently the service is also not very reliable). In Ireland it is possible to buy iPhones either free of contract or with a contract from any of the service providers. According to Electric News, the different mobile phone service providers had a radically different attitude towards facilitating the Apple fanboys who can't wait to get their hands on the new device:

• Three Ireland opened its stores in Dublin, Waterford, Limerick, Cork, Galway and Killarney from a minute past midnight.
• Rival network O2 opened the doors of some stores in Dublin, Drogheda, Tralee, Galway, Cork andLimerick at 8am. However, the mobile operator said it was restricting iPhone 4 sales to existing customers for the initial launch period.
• Vodafone stores opened at the normal time, but the online store began selling the handset at 7.30am.

There seems to be a serious shortage of stock with all of the outlets reporting that they were sold out by the evening time when I got a chance to check. This is probably a reflection of the huge rise in popularity in all smartphone types. All of the outlets were also reporting that the Android based HTC Desire is also sold out eventhough that has been on the market for a while.