Apple’s revolutionary (and controversial) new iPhone 4 will be heading to 17 new countries this Friday, the 30th of July.

The smartphone will be shipping out to Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. There's no word on a South African release date yet unfortunately.

The much acclaimed new handheld sports the highest resolution display ever built into a phone, resulting in amazingly crisp and clear images. The new FaceTime feature makes video calling a breeze and the glass and stainless steel design ensures that it’s both the thinnest, and one of the best looking mobiles in the world.

The smartphone is available for a recommended retail price of $199 (R1500) for the 16 GB model and $299 (R2200) for the 32GB model.

Apple has announced that the smartphone will be released to many more countries during the course of the year. Here’s to hoping that we aren’t at the bottom of the list.

No confirmation regarding when the device will be released in South Africa has yet been made.