You kids don't mention the free wireless access (at 7500 sites in the UK) in your article. What's that all about? Give me some more details. I love Apple (but only owning an aged iBook and a first gen shuffle that I found dropped in a gutter you might not think it) and I need to know.

If you must have an iPhone wait 6 months for the 3G version (and 2009 for the 3.5G version!) and it'll probably also have 16GB of flash memory. You will regret being stuck in an 18 month contract with this old tech phone. No video recording, no MMS, fixed battery, only Apple format music, etc Pay £900 but it'll be a very expensive experience ;)

People will buy it, but I am going to be honest with you here, with an 8GB touch costing £199 (£70 less than the phone) and with no 18 month contract required I would be surprised it would have much of an impact.

"Steve Jobs claimed that 3G negatively affects the handset’s battery life and that an enabled model shouldn't be expected to appear until next year."

|'m glad he mentioned that.. i'll wait until next year then thanks. More fool the people who jump on it now with an 18 month contract!

I do hope o2 aren't pinning their future on this.

Let's see, the minimum you can get an iphone for is a quid short of 900 of our British pounds. OK, you get 18 months call and data in that, but most of us already have enough of that, thanks.

Or as an alternative:

iPhone in the states: $399. Add the import duty if you import one, and that's £250 if you get caught for it and the parcelfarce £13 cartel fee.

Activate it using the freely available tools. £0. Remove the sim lock - £0. Insert other SIM. Continue with service as normal.

I know which route is more appealing to me.

come on o2, where's the prepay option? The iPhone was supposed to be paid for by the consumer and not subsidised by the operator, so why the 18 month contract?

And what about the T-Mobile SNAFU perss release of the 16GB iPhone with 3G support? I realise it is unthinkable to doubt Sir Steve of the Revisionist History, but I doubt battery is the real reason for 3G being missed - could it be that they need to shift units before the new 16GB machine comes out that the market wants?

I would like an iPhone, but with this announcement I won't be bothering with a UK supplied one. Similarly, I am worried at apple's attempts to lock people out of using products as they (rather than apple) see fit. Perhaps Apple really is the next Microsoft? ;-)

Will be interesting to see if O2 offer any sweeteners to existing customers with Pocket PCs and the likes....

Probably not mind you...

I certainly cant - or wont - pay roughly 900 over 18 months.

But if i can cancel the contract, flash the phone and plug in whatver SIM takes my fancy - thats quite a different story.

Does anybody know if the contract can be cancelled? After how long time?

'Those privileged to be present'?

Was somebody perhaps still a bit peeved about not being invited (again). Well done for hiding your disappointment behind professional journalistic integrity in at least three articles... ;-)

Irrespective of the merits (or lack of) of the iPhone, those people I know who work in mobile phone sales, reckon it's going to do very well....

Shame there wasn't much anaylsis in the article... considering how many other news sites manage to cover this announcement earlier, it's a pity that El Reg hasn't added anything more.

It's a phone that plays music. £269? Hmmm...

I would have thought the iPhone has had it's chance and failed miserably.

It's a perfect marriage anyway - the most outdated, biggest rip-off, slow technology network with an outdated, biggest-rip-off, slow technology mobile phone.

I really wouldn't want to have shares in O2....it doesn't seem to have a long lifespan ahead..

Personally, I would rather put up with slightly less battery life but have the 3G capability. 18 month contract should do well making Apple plenty of money if the batteries die in that time, it would be nice if one day they offered removable batteries and not be a total pain in the ass.

Roll on the release of the Sony Ericsson W960i 8GB, no 3G support has just swayed my buying decision.

MUGSFEST ! Well done Jobs. Britons are used to Ripoff Britain, so why not ?

NEXT!

£269+monthly contract fee for a mobile phone!!!!

not a chance!

And what a tariff...200min/200text/18mths for £35!!!!

Having dropped the NGNs. thereby losing a lot of its followers, I hope O2 now lose further credibility. What a rip off!

I suppose people will still purchase it though!

Now looky here. I am a huge Apple fan and have switched myself and family over the Macs and iPods, but we won't be buying any iPhones.

Yes, it has a nice interface, and yeah it looks lovely, but it's too expensive. I use a mobile phone, and have one of these pay-as-you-go contracts, currently I spend about £10 a year on top ups. No way I'm trading that in for £420 a year plus £269 up front.

So long Steve, see you again one day.

Does anyone else wonder how adversley the battery life could be affected given that the nokia N95 has an acceptable battery life with 3G and a GPS chip in it as well ?!?

Why the holy jesus would anyone even consider this rip off deal now?

You can get a 3g 5 megapixel GPS enabled Nokia N95, on a 18 month O2 contract with 500 minutes and 1000 texts for £30 a month, for free.

For the extra I would be paying O2 I would save £60 a year and get an iPod Touch 16gb, and have a superior device and a better phone!

Apple is on cloud coocoo land if it thinks this is going to sell new that the iPod touch is out.

It took WOE2 six months to enable GPRS on my account a couple of years ago. I'm never going to switch to them.

I'm quite happy on my 18-month contract with Vodafone which handily ends in November - just in time for me to... get an upgrade from Vodafone and ignore WOE2 again.

I might just nip over to the US, buy an iPhone for £70 less and unlock it. Or I'll just get an iPod touch with twice the storage space. I'm sure a good few people will do this, too.

I'd be interested in the phone without the contract, and then unlocking it, but I'd never switch to O2 just for an iPhone, not unless Orange *completely* loose the plot real-soon-now. I guess I'll keep my Blackberry and buy an iPod Touch : )

The fact that everyone *knows* how much apple are pulling in, and it certainly *seems* like a hell of a premium makes Apple look greedy. And that might just be because they are (I wonder how much it cost them to develop?)

I won't be buying, A fanboi I may be, but that kind of money would pay for my PAYG mobile top ups for about 10 years.

I'm not going to buy a luxury phone just because Apple makes one.

This is no criticism of the device or of Apple. I don't think it's deficient or expensive compared to its competition. I just happen not to want it or any of its competition.

So that's 279, then 35*18, for a total of over 900 quid.

For that you could get yourself a Nokia N95 on a 12month Flext35 contract, with double the included minutes, and unlimited 1.4mbit 3.5G.

What's more, you'd still have enough left to buy an 8GB Ipod Nano. And an entire PC.

Whoa, whoa, whoa there nelly.

£269 for the handset (8Gb)

+

£35 * 18mths = £630 (cheapest tariff)

-------

£899 all in, over 18 months?

Screw that! Screw Apple and O2 for that bombshell.

Now lets look at my current handset - MDA Vario II (HSDPA 3G + Wifi + Bluetooth + etc + etc, plus I can also get YouTube via a small hack, so I'm missing iTunes, whoop).

£95 Handset (at time of purchase)

+

£15 * 12mths = £180 (cheapest tariff too)

--------

£275 all in, over 12 months, & I can change sooner.

-SOLD-

iBored of all the iPhone stories.

So Apple's failure with the jPhone in Europe has begun with O2!!! LOL They have absolutely no idea how the phone market works over here, only how to fleece money out of unsuspecting customers, and O2 agreeing to the madness that Apple demands just shows how desperate O2 are to get the business, which I predict will be abysmal.

No 3G

No MMS

No video

18 month contract at extortionate rates with, imho, the worst provider

No thanks, go home SJ.....you're not welcome.

Anyone see the guy on the lunchtime news about the iPhone? I think he was from stuff magazine or something. Possibly the biggest fanboy I have ever seen, bought the 3G story hook line and sinker and went on to say how revolutionary the iPhone was compared to what else is out there.

...can I have an N95 please! I'd even take it if it was the same price as the iPhone.

Chris

Let's face it: 3G *is* a battery hog. You turn off WCDMA, and Eureka: your battery life doubles, your call quality and coverage improves, and you stop dropping calls. I get 3 hours of data on my HSDPA (3.5G) enabled HTC TyTN - and the thing about mobile data is that if the interface and services are compelling, you actually feel like using it. So I'm with Steve on that one.

On the flip side, 2G is slow(*). I've frequently chugged along at 4-5kbps - and lag isn't good either. WRT 2.75G (EDGE), I've experienced it while roaming a couple of times, and it's been OK - but not overwhelming. ISTR that some operators have streamed video over it, nonetheless.

However - one thing I would expect Apple or O2 to do is to enforce a proxy server for page/data compression. They're not charging for the data anyway, so there's no gain from leaving the data uncompressed; on the flipside, if they achieve 90% compression, they increase speed or network capacity by the same amount. Since 90% of the use will be on the embedded apps anyway, then by compressing data to these they'll massively reduce the air interface traffic and no-one will really mind.

And of course, if you sit down to really use your phone, chances are you might be in a WiFi Hotspot area or an O2 microcell, in which case you'll get decent data rates anyway.

(* Hell - 3G is slow: it always took my Nokia E61 a good few seconds of lag before it could ramp up the data rate after each page request from my web browser, and the sustained data rate wasn't amazing either. HSDPA is where it's at.)

.. all you lot seem to be forgetting about all those numpties who roam around the place desperate to show off all their latest toys and measure each others successes in "bling". they would probably gladly waste double the money just because some 'fashion magazine' will deem this waste of a 'phone' a 'must-have item'.

i am of course not refering to chavs, but rather the 'ra'-crowd and the 'city-boys'.

hows steve j. makes his money: never underestimate the power of stupidity in masses.

-c.

So the cost is high because "its expensive to do business here with shipping and servicing" (according to an interview on BBC Radio earlier today, hmm I note he didnt mention the very favourable (for Apple) exchange rate. Even my resident Mac fanboi agrees this is an overpriced under-resourced joke and he WONT be buying into it.

Whatever respect I had for Apple went out of the window today.. Jobs is no better than Gates... another American Rip Off artist!

After many-an-article bashing other news outlets for their Apple worship, it was a tad disappointing to see $536 described as 'slightly more than' £399 in this article. (the price of the 8GB in the UK compared with the US)

Worse still, £269 is currently worth $542.25 according to Google and their spangly currency conversion search syntax thingy.

people fail to realise the following points:

1) people are THINK and will pay over the odds

2) People see the words 5megapixel and think its the dogs bollox, the n95 has in no way "an ok battery life" since its the worst nokia product ever and gets slagged off to high heaven.

3) Anyone who thinks the iphone wont go far, needs to get a grip

4) Most people who have a 3g phone dont even use the capability FACT

5) who has ever changed the battery in their mobile phone, the fact the the iphone has a non removeable one, who cares, GET A GRIP

6) Steve Jobs is 100% correct when he says that 3g impacts on the battery life, in fact making a phone call will deplete the battery life, as will sending an sms, i fail to see the logic in the guys statement.

I will laugh my tits off at the people who import one of these on the premise of unlocking it, then apple plugging the security holes and their phone is locked once again to only accepting an at&t sim card

the following goes to Ben Knudsen who obvioulsly knows nothing about mobile phone contracts, you cant simply cancel a phone contract because you feel like it, you'll be buying yourself out the contract or cancelling it on month 17.

People are moaning and complaining about the iPhone, something which they have neither seen or used, so unless you have SHUT THE HELL UP

I'm much more interested in finding out when we'll see a successor to the XDA Exec. (HTC Omni). Mine isn't going to last much longer.

As much as i love Apple's products - and as much as i'm itching to play with the iPhone/iPod Touch interface - i'm not stumping up £35/month for a measly 200 minutes and 200 texts. I'm already an o2 customer and get more minutes and texts a month whilst paying fifteen quid *less* than that...

Oh, and the whole ringtone malarky is just ridiculous. I can get just about any other phone and set any old mp3, wav, aac (etc) file as the ringtone. I'm happy to look like a berk when Benny Hill's theme tune starts up in my pocket, but i'm not *paying* to look like one...

I'm not sure how O2 can justify locking you into an 18 month contract with this. My (and our legal department's) understanding of the regulations on contract lock in is that you have to show the additional value 'given' to the customer. This could be in the form of a free (i.e. subsidised) handset (or wifi mode/router if you're an ISP, free Sky box, etc.); or better value (i.e. cheaper) services than an equivalent rolling 1 month deal.

I see neither here. Unless O2's current contracts are appalling deals, 200 mins, 200 SMS and a dodgy 'free' wifi bundle do not seem to offer significant additional value over their regular contracts.

On the other hand, if O2 really are handing over 40% of their revenue, no wonder they've set the MRC so high. Jeez, they've been suckered!

Plus, Apple are going to be pretty upset when they launch 3G handsets (who still believes 3G ruins you're battery life -- these aren't first gen chips you know), and they find out how littel O2 have invested in their network. The early adopters will be glad they've got EDGE!

5 year exclusivity. Oh dear. I don't think either party is going to be happy with this...

If a new model comes out next year, you can simply buy the upgraded model and stick it on your existing contract....

From the point of view of already having a contract phone, these tariffs are likely to save me money, rather than costing me more. I've purposely let my contract with Orange run out, so there will be no problem switching networks. I already have a 3G phone, so if I desperately need 3G speed (assuming I am somewhere remote enough not to have Wifi, but somehow having 3G service), then can I just swap the SIM into my old phone?

At the moment, I find that my Edge SE W810i is generally faster than the 3G Nokia, as the 3G tends to drop down to normal GPRS. The difference between 3G and Edge perceptually is not too bad. The difference between Edge and GPRS is a killer!

For me, one of the best features of the tariff is the tie up with the Cloud. I've never been able to really justify a roaming Wifi contract - having it bundled in is very much a bonus. Will it allow me to connect using my laptop as well?

The critical issue is what the definition of "unlimited" data is, and what is "fair use". Bearing in mind the uses they are trying to push with it, my guess is that it should be quite a decent amount.

There's no way I'm paying for a £35/mo mobile contract of any length; I like my £15/mo contract with 3 and a £2 10MB data download rider which is plenty to get the odd Yahoo! mail on the go, not to mention the free handset upgrade.

Maybe when my present 18mo. contract is up in 2009 the iPhone will be offered more widely and with better contract terms, but even then I'd be buying it for the UI and ease of sync; not for the "combined widget factor" -- I just cannot see spending hours of my life uploading hundreds of CDs to my computer just to upload some of them periodically to a portable music player when I've already dubbed them to MD.

but its soo pretty :D

"the nokia N95 has an acceptable battery life with 3G"

Have you ever used one? If you have, it wasn't for very long, I'll guess.

But 200 minutes and 200 texts usually cost £25 a month on O2.........

Seems like the end user is paying the 40% revenue that goes to Apple.

The way I see it, looking at phones on o2's other £35/month 18 month contracts, you can get a phone that would set you back for £350 as a sim-free phone for free. (Motorola RIZR Z8 is what I'm using for my example)

On the same monthly spend contract, the iPhone costs £269 more than free.

£269 more than a £350 phone give this phone a theoretical value of over SIX HUNDRED POUNDS!!!

And that's for a 2.5g, network locked phone that you can not install any applications on?

Is it April 1st already?

Yes, they will sell a few, but this is not only what they should have done, but why: a) Gone with Vodafone b) Included HSDPA that from my experience with Vodafone's excellent mobile data card, is a far more practical alternative to WiFi and EDGE. c) Included at least 16G of memory to satisfy the UK consumer who is far more into their music than anything else. Not to mention fact that in 3 months, never mind 18, 8G will be used up with videodownloads and photos. This is a case of Apple being too greedy and only O2 accepting the terms of their agreement. Despite being a fan of some of Apple's offerings, I personally believe the new LG Viewty and Samsung F700 to offer more versatile and future proof connectivity options. Very sad. (This is no knock on O2 and while I am a Vodafone subscriber, I have no interest in them.)

I read that as "must-have mindset" the first time around.

I note most of the people totalling up the "price" of the iPhone seem to assume that your calls, SMSs and data are all magically free for the provider if you have an iPhone, and that the £35+ a month you pay to the network is just pure solid profit?

Nope. I have a Sony Ericsson phone which is fine, and I use it quite a lot, and I pay about £40 a month for my contract (because I use lots of minutes and SMSs). The phone cost me £50 and it's an 18 month contract. And yet no-one in their right mind would go around claiming that their W810i cost them £770.

As for the people saying "I won't buy this, I spend £10 a year on PAYG", well, frankly, this is a phone for people who already spend a lot on phones/calls/etc... I don't think Apple believe for one second someone who spends £10 a year will rush out and buy this phone and neither do O2.

O2 missed a big opportunity to get people locked in to using the iPhone on their network, they should have had low tariffs for the unlimited data element; £15/month for data for 18 months with bolt-ons for pre-paid text and voice minutes. I'm not interested in making phone calls but I do want data on the move (not bothered too much about speed its signal availability that counts and O2 has always proved the best for me ... YMMV). Still I suspect a significant number will buy it to make the numbers Apple are looking for.

The new "3 Mobile Broadband" usb dongle looks slightly better value and it works on Macs - still milking the customer for the bandwidth though ... if only the telcoms had not paid such huge prices for the 3G licences back when, then things would probably look much better for the customer ... thank you "the free market" (my backside).

However, even better is the £5.87 for 500 minutes a month on the BT Openzone wifi subscription [BT customers only] (roams with The Cloud, T-Mobile etc) and combined with an iTouch you would get fairly good mobile working coverage.

So for me, its probably no iPhone this year but instead either an iTouch and BT Openzone (which I have used for a couple of years with various devices) or if I don't like the iTouch/Phone style interface then I'll grab a Nokia N800 or N770 off ebay and use that instead.

I want to play with an iTouchyPhone though before finally deciding though as you should not diss something unless you have actually used it !!

Just got back. El Reg you missed nothing. Blagged a place and wished I missed the gig.

Glad to see assorted UK hacks were a bit more restrained and cynical that the majority of the US media buffoons. Still unsure about this applauding thing... I don't like this trend. When did we start doing such things? It was a pretty poor set of announcements so why applaud other then to tell them we have had enough information now please go away.

O2's presence was pretty much to be expected. Everyone nicely iTamed and iTethered. Alas we've seen it all before with Apple and Steve's many business "partners" over the years (hey anyone still remember Carly Fiorina @ HP The Purple iPod Shaftee?). I reckon Starbuck's CEO could be a formidable shafter though...

Oh, and one more thing: I'd really like it if at one of these shindigs when Steve says "And we've a great new advert for [product], we'd like to show it to you... would you like to see it?" The amassed UK hacks would just say "no, its okay just punt us at the YouTube URL later and answer a few more questions without sidestepping them..."

Its weird coming away from an Apple even without the cold shower to wash off the iHalo. Times have changed.

Unlimited data transfers and free UK wide wifi access at 7,500 sites?

Sure it's not 3G, Wifi is better than 3G anyway and in a city you'll get Wifi pretty easy.

I remember an economics lesson many years ago about Scotch Whiskey in Japan - used to be very heavily taxed and cost a packet. The Scots lobbied to get the tax cut, and succeeded. Then sales slumped because there wasn't the "money to burn" cachet to be had from drinking a fine single malt. has someone told o2 and Apple about this? Go on - own up!!

Does anyone know what warranty it will be offered with - only once before I got stung by a phone going faulty in month 13 and had to fight almost until month 18 to get it sorted out.

Mind you having had "bleeding edge" handsets before has taught me a valuable lesson - don't bother, wait a while for rev2 or 3, it'll cost less, do more, and probably be more reliable.

Just like being there (if you were invited). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Gyq0lTubjk

I work for Vodafone, I get hassle all the time about this price plan being better than the other and how its not competitive etc etc and yet some nut jobs (like what I did there?) will actually pay £35 p/m for 200 mins and 200 txts. If I told one of my customers thats all they could have for that price they would laugh and then leave. Get a grip o2, the iPhone isnt worth you giving away 40 per cent of your profits. I dont like the n95 but Id rather have that than this. My girlfriend really wanted one, now she is thinking twice. I reckon apple fans might like this, but they're often the idiots with more money than sense so I suppose that fits.

With the greatest respect... hang on, bugger that... with no respect at all to the poster who claims to be spending only £10 per year on top ups: even if you're only being charged 10p per min for all calls, that's only 100 min per year. You aren't the typical user.

And frankly, we're talking about a company that charges 50 quid for an mp3 player with no screen. I don't think Jobs is after your shilling.