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£269 for the initial thing.
18 month contract at minimum £35 per month:

A nice round figure of £899 to own the iPhone for 18 months. How many people, even among us mac users, can justify that?? Maybe if your employer was paying the bills, but which company would pick an iPhone over a blackberry type thing?

Mobile phone pricing is one of the most ridiculous things these days. A 5kB text message costs nearly the same as a 500kB voice conversation.

I'll be sticking with my £40 nokia and my £10 p/m O2 sim. 300 free texts per month - more than the £35 iphone contract...

I believe the bulk of the contract cost is going to the unlimited data. Which isn't good if you'd rather talk and text, but I've got a nice deal on another network (crappy Voda) where me and my girlfriend can ring each other for free.

Yea. Way I see it; low end call+text tarrif with unlimited data. Worth it IMO.
 
Unless your very rich, the common person could never afford the iPhone contract under Rogers!

So true, but I'm still one of the optimistic ones that Apple and Rogers will come to some sort of deal to lower data prices. After all, it would help Rogers for sure.
 
if i turn up at the regent street store at 6pm on friday, does anyone have a guess how long the wait will be? thanks

Hi all,

first time posting here (I tend to be more of a lurker but couldn't resist answering this one) so be gentle with me !

anyway, from what I gather.. and this is to give some indication of expected response in the UK... The CEO of Carphone Warehouse is expecting to sell 10,000 iPhones in the first 4 hours on Friday. Carphone Warehouse have 450 stores in the UK, so a quick calculation sees..

22 phones sold per store in 4 hours.. or one every 10 minutes or so, on the night.

As I said - it's *very* rough estimate. I'm going to pull on by one of their stores at 9pm or so in the hope that there won't be any queues ;)
 
I'm still amazed that people are so interested in the iPhone in the UK... It doesn't have MMS which is now almost ubiquitous, the camera is pathetic, the storage capacity's really low and it's insanely expensive.

I was keen to get one and having played with an iPod touch the other day, I became even more excited but no matter how much I'd like one, I simply cannot justify spending that much on a phone which lacks basic things like the ability to support MMS. This may sound stupid but I get picture messages from friends and family all the time and not being able to receive them on the 'hottest new device' will make me look like a laughing stock!
 
I'm still amazed that people are so interested in the iPhone in the UK... It doesn't have MMS which is now almost ubiquitous, the camera is pathetic, the storage capacity's really low and it's insanely expensive.

I'm just getting one because it just looks awesome and I'm also a bit of a gadget freak. I'm not too fussed about MMS - that's just software at the end of the day and I'm sure it'll be sorted out in a future update :)
 
Sold on first touch

I'm just getting one because it just looks awesome and I'm also a bit of a gadget freak. I'm not too fussed about MMS - that's just software at the end of the day and I'm sure it'll be sorted out in a future update :)

I played with a US iPhone for a while and I was sold as soon as played with it for 5 mins.

This was less like 'that is an expensive phone' and more like 'this is an amazing held touch screen Mac and iPod....oh and it makes calls as well'...

Most handsets I have upgraded to have always disappointed me, however I am not expecting the iPhone to be.

I have never used MMS as after having worked on some software that deals with mobile gateways it is clear that the results are different on every handset and the quality varies depending on which network you are sending it to. If I send someone a pic via e-mail, at least I know they will get a decent quality pic.

Don't get me wrong, this may be a good reason for some people not to get this handset, but not good enough for me.
 
Warranty or Insurance is not the point here at all.

I think you haven't understood the point of my question, its not the hardware its the contract which continues to run, I can insure the hardware but the customer would maybe have to sign up for a new contract thats defnitely not only a customer problem even if he broke the iphone himself!? These are two separate things, its not that if I get money from the insurance to replace the hardware, but the issue is the exclusivity bundled with hardware! Thats a new situation. Without phone and the possiblity to replace it even with payment would make it impossible to make use of the signed contract, therefore there is no basis for the contract anymore, little example if you move the house though your hommephone contract would still run for some month, there is nevertheless no basis for the service anymore so you just can cancel it. So what I mean is the customer MUST have the possibility to get back and be able to use the exclusive tarif even if the phone gets lost or stolen, of course this risk must financially be covered and basically the customer will have to pay for it somehow but my poinit is THERE IS NO WORD FROM ANYBODY HOW THIS "PROCESS" WOULD WORK, or did I miss something! I hope I might myself clear now :)

PS don't forget that the mobile tariffs do contain special services like the visual voicebox which is only usable with the iphone!

Quite obviously, you didn't get what I was hinting at :p

When you lose, break, or otherwise end up requiring a new handset, how does it work in the UK?

It works one of the following ways, depending on your network:

1. You get a new handset, at full price, and can activate it on your current contract.

2. You get a new handset, at full price, and your contract is reset to the 12, 18, or 24 months it was at when you started.

3. The network offers you a free handset again, if you promise to take out insurance. This obviously won't happen with the iPhone, as it's not subsidised (much, if at all).

So it looks like it will be option 1 or option 2. Neither are horrific. Except the £30-£50 networks charge for a replacement SIM card if you're not careful.
 
Quite obviously, you didn't get what I was hinting at :p

When you lose, break, or otherwise end up requiring a new handset, how does it work in the UK?

It works one of the following ways, depending on your network:

1. You get a new handset, at full price, and can activate it on your current contract.

2. You get a new handset, at full price, and your contract is reset to the 12, 18, or 24 months it was at when you started.

3. The network offers you a free handset again, if you promise to take out insurance. This obviously won't happen with the iPhone, as it's not subsidised (much, if at all).

So it looks like it will be option 1 or option 2. Neither are horrific. Except the £30-£50 networks charge for a replacement SIM card if you're not careful.

Doesn't work that way on O2 when you have the insurance with them. You pay for the insurance monthly. You get a new handset and simcard etc..... ie get you iphone nicked and a new one turns up and you activate it viaa itunes again no hassle. Why are people making such a meal out of that!?
 
Quite obviously, you didn't get what I was hinting at :p

When you lose, break, or otherwise end up requiring a new handset, how does it work in the UK?

It works one of the following ways, depending on your network:

1. You get a new handset, at full price, and can activate it on your current contract.

2. You get a new handset, at full price, and your contract is reset to the 12, 18, or 24 months it was at when you started.

3. The network offers you a free handset again, if you promise to take out insurance. This obviously won't happen with the iPhone, as it's not subsidised (much, if at all).

So it looks like it will be option 1 or option 2. Neither are horrific. Except the £30-£50 networks charge for a replacement SIM card if you're not careful.

Well this would work, though I asked several T-Mobile customer support people and nobody could answer me that question, they didn't knew what they are allowed to do with regards to the iphone...
I'm going to ask them tomorrow in a store again. Yet I won't buy one, I'll wait in case the release is a flop in GY and prices drop...
 
USD is not an accepted currency in Germany, so somehow I think you are wrong. If Apple advertised a phone in Germany with a price tag of USD 70 the chances of being sued would be one hundred percent. And thousands of lawyers in Germany would just send them a letter "Sorry guys, but advertising a price in USD where everyone else advertises in Euros is misleading consumers and therefore unfair competition. Please send €100 to my bank account for my efforts writing this nice letter to you".
(a) macrumros.com is registered by Arnold who happens to live in Virginia, USA - while that implies by now means that the majority of the forum members is indeed from the US, I took the liberty to convert EUR 50,- to USD since most of the people will be familiar with the rate plans and prices in the US.
If you are having a hard time doing the conversion, I suggest you google "70 USD in EUR" – amazing, eh?

(b) better check again with your lawyer(s) before writing letters: what makes you think I cannot advertise a product in whatever currency I like? Try booking a LHR-NYC-LHR via the German BA site - price is quoted in GBP (granted, it comes with a disclaimer).

I understand your pain though: T-Mobile asks me to pay TTD 3.6 for a 10s call, that’s right all you folks in the sunny Caribbean – TTD 3.6 for 10s, we are talking a 60/60 system here…
 


Apple will be launching the iPhone in the UK and Germany this Friday, November 9th.

A press release details the launch details for Apple, O2 and Carphone Warehouse. The iPhone will be available from more than 1,300 Apple, O2 and Carphone Warehouse retail locations across the UK starting at 6:02pm. O2 has hired and trained hundreds of new iPhone specialists who will be in all 450 O2 stores. The UK iPhone will be sold for £269 and require an 18 month contract with O2. Only two iPhones may be purchased per person.

Despite some early comments indicating that there would be a data cap on the O2 network for EDGE-data, a recent Telegraph.co.uk article states that O2 has scrapped plans to limit web usage on the iPhone -- instead allowing users to download as much as they like.


The iPhone is also launching in Germany on November 9th through Telekom Shops of Deutsche Telekom as well as the T-Mobile web shop starting at midnight. The German iPhone requires a new 2-year T-Mobile rate plan and will be available for €399.

We've reopened our iPhone Purchaser Meetup forum to allow MacRumors in coordinating with others.

Existing iPhone users should also find interest in the the UK/German iPhone launch as it will likely coincide with the release of the 1.1.2 iPhone Firmware which is said to offer a number of bug and security fixes along with international language support.

Article Link
Congrats to those of you in the UK and Germany, about time you guys got to play with these phones :)
 
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