Germans lined up to buy Apple Inc.’s iPhone as it made its European debut on Friday, with the company hoping to replicate abroad the success the combination phone, music player and Web browser has seen in the United States.

Apple hopes to sell 10 million iPhones in 2008, helped by the launch of the iPhone in Europe, next in Asia next year. It goes on sale in Britain later Friday.

In Germany, the phone — a combined cell phone-iPod media player that plus can wirelessly access the World Wide Web — went on sale at increasingly than 700 T-Mobile shops.

One store in Cologne opened just after midnight to some 350 would-be buyers already lined up.

Johannes Krause, 32, waited for nearly four hours to get inside, but said it was worth the wait. He told The Associated Press he had wanted to his get his hands on an iPhone since January when Apple first unveiled the device in the United

Why? “Because it’s the first mobile Net device that makes it easy to surf the Web,” he said.

Others were drawn by the intense media coverage in the U.S.

“I just want to be the first to touch it, play with it and try it,” said Reinhold Steinwasser, 54, likening the event to the first moment color televisions went on sale in Germany in the 1960s and citizens would stand in front of department store windows marveling at the pictures in color.

But the price tag drew some complaints. In Germany the phone costs EU399 (about US$587), and contracts through T-Mobile start at EU49 (US$72) a month, along with a EU25 (US$37) installation fee.

“It’s absurdly expensive,” said Christian Kiew, 20, who said the device was aimed increasingly at professionals than young buyers.

Jonathan Arber, an analyst with London-based Ovum, said the cost, and the contract, could put off some…

Original post by Olga Kharif