Excitement is building with just over a week to wait until the launch of the Apple iPhone in the UK. O2 have signed a deal with Apple which guarantees the network exclusive rights to provide contract deals for the iPhone and will surely produce a huge surge in customers. Other retailers such as The Carphone Warehouse are already providing customers with a preview of the handset price and O2 tariff options.

The Apple iPhone looks fantastic. If fact it is looks and works so good that Apple has decided to base future iPod designs on the iPhone. The touch screen interface is revolutionary in the world of mobile phones. Although it has been done before on other mobile phones and PDA's, it has never been quite in the same style or manner that the iPhone offers. The Apple iPhone brings all the capabilities you would expect from a top of the range iPod including music and video, a 3.5-inch widescreen display, an 8GB flash drive and allows you to connect to your iTunes library. The battery life is far better than a normal mobile phone and allows up to 8 hours talk time. WiFi and GPRS connectivity allow for fast email and Internet browsing within the simple and easy to use Safari browser.

But the Apple iPhone is more about the experience. Apple has spent a lot of time getting their user interface just right and the result is sublime. For starters the iPhone automatically recognises whether you are holding and viewing the phone horizontally or vertically and adjusts the screen accordingly. The touch screen does not only respond to simple button touches but also to finger movements. For example to scroll through your contacts or play lists you simply slide your finger across the screen and the iPhone responds as a computer software program would when you use the scroll bar. There are also certain finger actions which allow you to zoom in and out when viewing web pages or photos. Even the keypad lock is operated by sliding your finger across the phone to prevent you from mistakingly using the iPhone's touch screen buttons. There is one single traditional button at the bottom of the iPhone which allows you to quickly return to the mail menu.

The Apple iPhone only includes a 2 megapixel camera which is far behind the current technology supplied through other mobile phone manufacturers. Surprisingly there is no option to capture video through the iPhone camera which, when you consider that Apple products focus a lot on allowing users to watch video, seems very peculiar. This gives you the feeling that the camera was a last minute add-on and was not entirely thought through properly.

The iPhone breaks the mold and has created a huge jump in mobile phone user interface displays which other mobile phone manufacturers must be scurrying around to try and catch up with Apple. Although there are currently some other fantastic phones on the market, such as the Nokia N95 which offers greater technology, the Apple iPhone is about to become the best selling mobile phone of the year, partly though the hype it has received but mainly because it is such a fantastic revolutionary product.