Apple finally announced officially the carrier which will sell exclusively the Euro iPhone in the UK - it comes as no surprise that O2 will be cashing on this deal since rumors about that have been going on for quite some time now. Steve Jobs was unwilling to comment on the selected carriers for the rest of the European countries just now. Let us remind you that it's expected that T-Mobile will sell iPhone in Germany, and Orange in France.
What is more important than the choice of carriers is that Apple has shed some light on the EuroPhone specs for the first time. The European iPhone will see no hardware changes in comparison to the US one. After all the critical reviewes out there, one would easily think that Apple would try harder this time and would make a take two on the iPhone. But unfortunately, it won't kick in 3G and the camera will remain a 2 megapixel one - obviously we expected to see some changes in vain. According to Steve Jobs Wi-Fi and EDGE are the only protocols which will deliver high-speed data transfers to the device. The European iPhone 8GB will be sold for GBP 269 incl. VAT or around EUR 390 which makes it a good deal more expensive than the American version (USD 399). The future O2 customers will sign an 18-month contract (plans start from GBP 35) with unlimited data rates but with a twist - the data transfers are quoted as unlimited but with a fair usage agreement clause which will limit the data transfers for up to estimated 1400 internet pages per day - go figure! Further on O2 has made a deal with Cloud as a free Wi-Fi internet provider for the iPhone owners (7500 hot spots throughout the country). The iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store will also hit UK really soon.
New European owners will have to go through the same iTunes procedure in order to activate their iPhone full functionality. Still, no native third-party applications will be allowed and the only thing the iPhone is left with is web applications.
Another interesting piece of news is also that from 1st October O2 will be offering unlimited data packages to all of their customers. The European iPhone itself will hit the shelves as of November 9 and Carphone Warehouse will also be involved as a distributor.
