The iPhone is about to hit UK shelves, with Carphone Warehouse predicting it will be their busiest sales day ever.

The Apple product combines a touch-sensitive mobile phone handset with a built-in iPod media player and a wireless internet browser.

It is already on eBay.co.uk for up to double the £269 price tag it will carry when it launches at 6.02pm on Friday.

Chief executive officer Charles Dunstone said the gadget would mark a turning point in the way UK consumers use their mobile phones.

Mr Dunstone said: "It is a really important day not just for Apple but actually for the phone industry. I think it will move people's perceptions of what a mobile phone is a long way forward."

Reports that hackers are preparing to unlock the new iPhone from its network have been shrugged off, despite reports from Apple that this appears to have happened to about 250,000 of the 1.4 million iPhones sold in the US.

Many of the iPhones being sold by UK vendors on the eBay online auction site are described as unlocked, so they can work on any mobile phone network.

© Independent Television News Limited 2009. All rights reserved.