Apple 3G iPhone

O2 UK have let slip the pricing for the Pay & Go iPhone.

On their website for a couple of hours only, were the price of the new 3G Pay & Go iPhone along with information on data charges.

The starting price will be £299 for the 8GB and £359 for the 16GB model.

The purchase cost will include 6 months free Data usage and free access to their WiFi providers The Cloud and BT Openzone.

After the initial 6 months you are able to continue using data at a cost of £10 per month. Alternatively anyone not tacking out the offer of £10 per month unlimited data could be facing a charge of £3 to £6 per Megabyte.

This offer will be available until December 31st....


Prices for Talk & Text Pay & Go tariffs are quite reasonable...






Unless Apple cut the price of the iPod Touch I would say it’s definitely worth paying an extra £50 to upgrade to a iphone and benefit from the free 6 months of data.

Tags: iPhone, 3G

More free WiFi for iPhone customers

O2 is to add more free WiFi access for iphone users with the addition of BT Openzone.

From July 11th iPhone users will be able to access over 9500 Wifi hotspots from The Cloud and BT Openzone throughout the UK.

Tags: iPhone, O2, WiFi

On Thursday the 6th March Apple held an event at Apple Town hall to discuss the iPhone Software roadmap.

First onto stage was Steve Jobs to welcome everyone and thank them for coming.
Steve then went on to discuss:

The US Smartphone market -

In just 8 months the iPhone has a 28% market share.
The iPhone has a U.S mobile browser usage of 71%.


Then Steve introduces Phil Schiller
( Senior Vice president, Worldwide Product Marketing) to the stage to talk about, iPhone in Enterprise -

Customers wanted:
Push e-mail
Push calenders
Push contacts
Global address list
Cisco IPsec VPV
Certificates and Identities
WPA2 / 802.1x
Enforced security policies
Device configuration
Remote wipe

Phil then announces that Apple are doing all these in the next release of the iPhone software 2.0.
Built in Microsoft Exchange support.
Apple has licensed the ActiveSync protocol from Microsoft.


Phil then introduces Scott Forstall
(VP iPhone)

SDK and developer news.

Scott updates on web app's, over 1000 already available.

Starting today 6th March Apple are releasing the same APIs and tools that they use for iPhone app's allowing 3rd party developers to build native app's for the iPhone.

The Mac OS has four architectural layers-
Cocoa
Media
Core services
Core OS

Media, Core services and Core OS are moved across to form the basis of the iphone platform.
Cocoa, based on mouse and keyboard, was used to build cocoa touch for the iphone.

So now we have the iPhone OS
Cocoa touch
Media
Core services
Core OS

SDK developers will have direct access on the iPhone for their app's to interact with:

Address book, so developers can create app's that have access to contacts.
Core locations, so developers can create location aware apps.
And much more.

Scott then goes on to explain the SDK tools in more detail such as Xcode.

Then demonstrates a Hello World app wrote in 2 days with less than 2,000 lines of code.
And a space fighter game wrote in 2 weeks with less than 10,000 lines of code.

Apple invited programmers to see what they could achieve in 2 weeks with the iPhone SDK.

Introduces Travis Boatman from EA to demonstrate SPORE for the iPhone.

Introduces Chuck Dietrich from Sales Force to demonstrate a sales force application.

Introduces Rizwan Sattar from AOL to demonstrate AIM for the iPhone.

Introduces from Glen Keighley Epocrates to demonstrate an app for the health care market.

Introduces Ethan Einhorn from Sega who demonstrates Super monkey Ball.


Steve Jobs then takes to the stage again.

Tells us about the App store on the iPhone to allow apps to be delivered directly to it. It will include featured, Just added, Staff picks, Top 50 and search section.
The app store with also show when a app you downloaded has been updated by the developer to allow you to update.
itunes will also be available to manage your downloads.

Developer will pick the price of the app and get 70%, apple to get the remaining 30%.
When the developer wants to distribute for free, there will be no charge to them at all.

Software update to be released in late June, free to the iPhone users and at a nominal fee for the ipod touch as they did for the recent Update 1.1.4 due to differences in accounting practices.

$99 to join the developer program.

ONE MORE THING...........

Steve introduces John Doerr a partner in Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers to announce the iFund.

A $100,000,000 fund for developers for the iPhone.

Past funding for companies to start include:

Google $24,000,000
EA $2,000,000
Amazon $8,000,000

Then rounds up the announcement from Apple and steve asks the press to stay behind for a Q&A.






Full details of the iphone developer program can be found here.

Tags: Apple, SDK, iPhone

Good news for us O2 iPhone customers.
The allowance for minutes and text messages has seen a huge increase.

Tags: iPhone, O2

Well it's here at last, on the 9th of November as you all know the UK iPhone was launched.

I decided to make a day of it and along with the better half we set of to the Glasgow Apple Store on a 320 mile round trip so I could have a look around the store before waiting in line for my iphone.

We left the house at about 9.15am arriving at Glasgow at about 12 midday.
After driving about for a while to find a parking spot we headed straight to the Apple store for a look about, It was everything I expected from what I had heard about Apple stores.

When we got there there were about 10 other people in line already waiting, the first had arrived at about 7am, I spent about an hour looking about the store, checking out the new iPod's and having a play with them before going outside and joining the que.

It was about 1.30pm and I was about 15th in the que. A long cold wait ahead I thought.
I was surprised at how quick the time passed, we got talking to people around us, some of whom already had iPhones with them (seems strange to see people standing in the que for something they already have in there pocket but I suppose thats the appeal of the iPhone)

At 2pm the store closed it's doors and the windows were covered up.
At 5.30pm the covers came down and the countdown clock appeared in the window.

Then the Apple staff gave us the 10 second countdown and the clock struck to 6.02, the door's opened and we were led in. Surrounded by Apple staff all cheering and clapping us in and around the store to collect our iphones.

A very strange experience, all adding to the excitement of getting my iPhone.

After waiting about 4 and a half hours in the que outside, the time came to actually get my iPhone. about 30 minutes before we went in we were told by an Apple employee what would happen when the doors opened, he also mentioned that they would be taking cash ( strange I thought as Apple had only announced about a week before that NO cash would be excepted for the iPhone.

At the till you could sense the excitement in everybody there including the Apple employee's. Then I paid for my iPhone, we then decided not to hang around the store, but instead to head straight home as we had a 3 hour drive ahead of us.

Getting out of Glasgow at 6.20pm was a bit of a nightmare with the traffic, also the sat nav would could not pick up a signal as the buildings were so tall around us.
So we headed out of town in any direction until the sat nav started to work and guided us back onto the motor-way on our way home. NOT without incident though, but I wont go into that.

Driving home knowing that my iPhone was only a few feet away and I'd have to wait about 3 hours before I could play with it was killing me.
We made good time on the way home as you'd expect........... and by 9.15pm we were back in the house. (12 Hours)

After a quick shower and a chip buttie (sandwich) I was sitting at my Macbook pro with my Iphone ready to activate. 30 minutes later I was up and running having activated and synced my iPhone.

I'll write a little more later to let you know how it's going so far....................

Tags: iPhone

If anyone's with Vodafone and is thinking of getting an iPhone, you've got to tell them you want the iPhone when you phone for the address to send your cancellation letter to.

The conversation I had with there cancelation department went a little like this:

Me- I want the address to send my cancellation letter to please.
VF- Sure it's ***** ***** *****
Me- Thanks.
VF- Can I ask why you want to cancel?
Me- I want an iPhone.
VF- Your going to pay £300 for a iPhone.
Me- It's £270.
VF- You do realize it's been absolutely slated in the last few days since it came out, they say it's really crap.
Me- Not by all the people in the US who have already bought it.
VF- AH but they've changed all the technology in it for the UK market.
Me- No they haven't it's the exact same phone.
VF- No it's not, they have taken the 3G out and replaced it with a slower kind of technology.
Me- The iPhone has never been 3G in the US, it's always been EDGE.
VF- Well they have changed a lot of the other spec's.
Me- I think you'll find it is the exact same phone mate. I can read out the spec's from the Apple US and UK sites for you now if you'd like.
VF- Well if thats all sir.
Me- Yes thanks for your help......

It's sad that Vodafone feel that they have to resort to these kind of tactics to keep customers just because they didn't get the iPhone.
They obviously didn't try hard enough or didn't want to agree with the terms Apple wanted.

I still haven't decided when I'm going to actually buy the iPhone. I would love to but one on November the 9th but there are a few things that I would really like to wait for.

3G is a big thing here in the UK but I can live without that.
No MMS yet, I can live without that until Apple hopefully issue a software update to add this. Especially as the UK spent 325 million on MMS last year.
I know there is E-mail to send pic's , fair enough if the other person has an iPhone, but it's a nightmare setting up and using e-mail on most other types of phone.
8Gig is OK with me as I'd keep my whole music library on my 30Gig iPod video.

The main thing is the Bluetooth I think I can only use this as a means to connect to a headset or handsfree kit and not to swap files, Bluetooth is the way I swap files and pictures etc with most of my friends and I'm not sure if this can be changed in a software update.

Tags: Vodafone

To buy on November the 9th or do I wait?

I can start by saying that I'm glad we finally have the iPhone here in the UK. BUT

NO 3G!!!!!!!!!!!
This is a surprise, especially as O2 have said they only have 30% coverage. There is the benefit of the free WiFi from The Cloud.net and their 7500 hotspots, but its something I wouldn't get much use of.
I could live with the speed (or lack of speed) of EDGE if I knew that I would be able to use the iPhone when I wanted to but with only 30% coverage I dont think that there will be many place's to pick up a EDGE signal.
The UK has massive 3G coverage. O2 has along with every other network operator in the UK made a massive investment over the years in 3G and to spend money now downgrading just doesn't make sense, I cant see them continuing the investment once the 3G iPhone is released. The shareholders wont want that.

I have said that no 3G means no iPhone for me, BUT I may be changing my mind. I booked a holiday at work for the 9th November and was about to pay for a return ticket to the Glasgow Apple store but then started thinking about the extra cost of the tickets added to the cost of the phone plus whatever else I manage to buy on the day would all add up to a rather expensive iPhone. So I'm now back to thinking that waiting till maybe march 08 to get a phone I can use anywhere in the UK with a larger memory, 3G and whatever else they might add is a better idea.

As for the price plans:



O2 has a £15 a month price plan with 200 anytime voice minutes and 400 text messages without a contract, so the unlimited data plan is actually costing you £20 a month along with a 18 month contract and your getting 200 text messages a month less.........



So...... What to do.......................

One thing I cant understand is that there are people already saying that the price of the iPhone is actually £899 (£35 x 18 months + £269).
This I dont understand. I wouldn't say my car cost £10,000 + 3 years of petrol payments and service costs..................

Anyway one thing that's made me a very happy person is that O2 will have a dedicated UK care facility for iPhone owners, that it's self is worth paying a little extra for in my book.

Tags: iPhone