Written by contributing editor Stu Helm from BUMP – British Users of Mac Podcast

Well it’s been an exciting day here in the UK, specifically in the Regent Sreet, London Apple Store. Steve Jobs (Apple’s CEO – do I really need to say that?) and Matthew Key (O2-UK’s CEO) were both present at the media event (the store itself was closed to the general public) to finally announcement the release plans for the iPhone in the UK.

Apple announced it would be shipping the 8gb iPhone (identical to the US model with only GPRS / EDGE data connectivity onboard, and not the much rumoured UMTS / HSDPA (3G) option. The phone will go on sale at a price point of £270 inc VAT initially, although when asked by a journalist if he would guarantee no price cut within 2 months of release Jobs said ‘I can’t guarantee that won’t happen, that’s the way technology works’ very much in the tone of his open letter to US iPhone owners after Apple shaved $200 of the iPhone price just recently.

O2 were confirmed and the sole carrier for the iPhone in the UK, unsurprising to many Brits as we’ve suspected as much from the start, they are by far one of the biggest carriers here and they actually used to be BT’s (who provide a large amount of the UK landline phone services, the only other company being the cable provider Virgin Media) cell brand, BT Cellnet, before they got sold off several years ago.

Price plan information was confirmed and stacks up very well, at least in my opinion. As with the AT&T price plans, they include unlimited data on the EDGE network, but also include something the US customers don’t get – unlimited WiFi browsing in around 7,500 wi-fi hotspots run by The Cloud, a company which provides wi-fi access on a range of hotspots including their own and deals with BT Openzone and T-Mobile. The actual minutes and text messages part of the package stack up as follows (taken from o2′s iPhone page)

• £35 per month : 200 minutes / 200 text messages
• £45 per month : 600 minutes / 500 text messages
• £55 per month : 1200 minutes / 500 text messages

Also mentioned are ‘Special Roaming rates with ITS’ which is o2′s international travel service, under new EU regulations phone carriers have been forced to lower international roaming costs, which made a huge difference to my phone bill when I returned from a family holiday to France this summer! O2 certainly have played this card well, after all the stories of AT&T customers receiving $100s and in some cases $1000s worth of international roaming charges they come out smelling of roses.

Everything else on the iPhone, including visual voicemail and the activation process via iTunes, remains unchanged from the US version of the iPhone, which should also mean that us ringtone hungry Brtis get access to the new custom ringtone features within iTunes 7.4 and above.

Personally, I will probably have to wait a few months to get an iPhone as I’m currently tied into an existing o2 contract, but I shall be giving them a call to see if I can get around that and if I can I will be buying an iPhone the minute my cash flow allows!! I’ll of course report back with any updates and any experience I’ve had with o2 and the response to the iPhone here in the UK.

Over at the BUMP – British Users of Mac Podcast we’ve just finished recording our reaction to the news and BUMP 006 should be up on the site and our iTunes feed in the next day or so.

Thanks for your valuable reading time, have a good one!

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