UK iPhone Launches for £269
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Richard Baguley Published on September 18, 2007 Comment on this |
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18th Sept 2007 – At an event in London this morning, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced the first foreign version of the iPhone. Running on the O2 network, the UK iPhone will cost £269 (approx $535), with a £35 a month service plan. It will go on sale on the 9th of November. The UK iPhone will have the same memory capacity (8GB) and EDGE data support as the US version. The announcement follows months of speculation on the international release of the iPhone, and despite rumors to the contrary, the international iPhone will not include 3G data support. And, despite the launch of the 16GB iPod touch, it will also come with the same 8GB of memory that the US model had.
What the UK iPhone will include which the US one doesn't is unlimited Wifi. The UK calling plans range from £35 a month to £55, with from 200 to 1200 minutes of calling. All include unlimited access to the Cloud WiFi network, which has 7,500 hotspots around the UK. Unlimited use of O2's EDGE network is also included, but at the moment, this only covers 30% of the UK population; like most European networks, the O2 network pretty much skipped EDGE an went straight to a 3G UMTS network.
The UK cell phone market is also much more competitive than the US one. The verry same carrier that is offering the iPhone in the UK offers a free Nokia N95 on a cheaper calling plan; so users can get an N95 for free and pay £30 a month, or get an £269 iPhone and pay $35 and up a month. However, the iPhone plan on O2 is the first to offer unlimited data; the N95 calling plan only includes 1MB per month. Of course, with only an EDGE connection on the iPhone, you won't be downloading that much, while the UMTS connection on the N95 means you could download much more.
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