June 19 (Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Wozniak went out early this morning to buy the new iPhone, which he plans to test against Palm Inc.’s rival touch-screen phone, the Pre.

Wozniak, who hasn’t had a full-time role at Apple since the 1980s, bought the phone at a Silicon Valley shopping mall, not far from the company’s headquarters. It was the third time he’s bought the new model of the iPhone in its first day of release.

Wozniak, 58, said he wanted the new iPhone’s voice-control option and video camera -- features he’s craved since the original model debuted in 2007. Apple began selling the device this morning in the U.S. and seven other countries, drawing crowds to its stores. The Cupertino, California-based company is counting on the phone to ward off mounting competition from Palm and Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry.

“I prefer to have a new product for at least a week or two before commenting on it,” he said in an e-mail.

Wozniak said he tried to buy a Pre after it debuted earlier this month, but stores were sold out. Wozniak also wants to try a phone with Google Inc.’s Android operating system. He has tested BlackBerry models as well.

Apple may sell 500,000 new iPhones this weekend, estimates Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray & Co. in Minneapolis. That would be about half the amount sold in the last iPhone release, partly because this year’s debut included fewer countries. Munster said today that his estimate may be conservative.

Two Models

The product, called the iPhone 3G S, starts at $199 for a model with 16 gigabytes of memory. A 32-gigabyte version costs $299.

Apple rose $3.60, or 2.7 percent, to $139.48 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares have climbed 63 percent this year.

Wozniak said he bought two iPhones today, one black and one white. The colors will let him tell which phone number each one uses, he said.

In electronic color codes, which identify components such as resistors, black indicates 0 and white corresponds with 9. His black iPhone has a phone number ending in 0, while his white one has a number ending in 9.

To contact the reporter on this story: Connie Guglielmo in San Francisco at cguglielmo1@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: June 19, 2009 16:17 EDT