Tuesday
Sep182007
UK iPhone Announced
Tuesday, September 18, 2007 at 11:10AM 
As expected, this mornings Apple special event in London was to launch the iPhone in the UK.Not Europe mind, just the UK!
Priced at £269 inc VAT for an 8GB phone, it looks like it's comparable in price to the US version. Not only price comparable, it also looks like it's the exact same phone - no 3G support just EDGE.
The monthly tariffs are £35, £45 and £55 per month which is roughly equivalent to the US.
Special deal with Clouds for free access to 7500 wifi hotspots - something we're sorely lacking in the UK although these are existing services I think.
The bummer is it's not available until November 9th but I guessed that it wouldn't be an immediate release. Apple now need to build up the buzz here in the UK leading up to the launch date. It's amazing how many people know nothing about the iPhone!
All will be revealed with the US ads on TV but revamped with a British Voice over, showing the Guardian Newspaper and the O2 Logo.
So all in all, nothing earth shattering but good to see things formalised. I would imagine other countries in Europe are likely to be a bit upset at this being just the UK but hopefully the other announcements might come at the Paris Expo in a few weeks.
I'll be discussing the UK iPhone announcement with Chuck Joiner on his MacVoices podcast later today so watch out for that in the next few days.
Now do I pick up an iPhone in the US and unlock it or do I wait....
Reader Comments (3)
What I'm unclear on is.. when you buy one in a US Apple store do you HAVE to sign up to AT&T as part of the purchase process?
No, you can just buy the iPhone and take it away. The AT&T signup happens when you first connect the Phone to your computer and is done via iTunes.
The latest unlocks allow you to bypass this step.
See this on the forum:
http://screencastsonline.com/forums/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1190111561
This is an awful deal even for such a wonderful phone. Look at O2s current £35 18 Month tarriff and its 600 mins talk and 1000 texts!
The iphone one is 200 for each. Thats just awful. How many of us need unlimited data plans, a very select few. Apple and O2 have made a serious error here trying to replicate the U.S.A. model in Europe.