Apple officially launches iPhone in the UK

£269 EDGE version on sale on November 9th via O2 and The Carphone Warehouse

18 September 2007 10:04 GMT / By Stuart Miles

At the "Mum is no longer the word" press conference at the Regent Street Apple store in London, Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple unveiled the iPhone for the UK to a select press audience.

9 months since the device was initially revealed to the world, and nearly 3 months since the device saw a launch Stateside, UK consumers now know when, and how, they will be able to get their hands on the Apple mobile phone.

Almost unprecedented levels of rumour, speculation and comment all boiled down to some finally confirmed simple facts.

The 8GB iPhone will launch in the UK on 9 November and will be offered by the UK's largest mobile phone operator - O2.

"We were fortunate to talk to all the carriers - but wanted to work with the best one - O2", said Steve Jobs without the usual fanfare.

"Within 2 minutes of starting to use it I knew it was a breakthrough product", said Matthew Key, CEO of O2, about Apple's mobile phone.

The phone will be available online, in Apple retail stores, in O2 shops - and as rumours suggested - at the Carphone Warehouse, giving customers 1300 store locations to buy the new phone. O2 has promised that there will be an iPhone expert in every store.

As with the US, O2 will offer visual voicemail to access voice messages and the phone will be activated through, and updated via, iTunes.

There will be a £35, £45 and £55 monthly packages and all will come with "fair usage" unlimited data which will allow users to view around 1400 web pages a day.

On the £35 contract users will let 200 inclusive minutes and 200 SMS texts. The £45 gives 600 minutes and 500 SMS while the £55 monthly payment will net you 1200 minutes and 500 SMS texts.

The minimum contract length will be 18 months - an improvement on the 2-year tie-in AT&T offers in the States. This means the total cost of the contract will be between £900 and £1200 spent over the course of the 18-month period.

"Sometimes you get what you pay for", said Jobs in defence of the price consumers will have to pay for the phone.

iPhone customers will also be able to use 7500 Wi-Fi hotspots provided by The Cloud for free in an attempt to compensate for the lack of 3G in the device.

Jobs blamed power issues for the lack of 3G in the handset, saying: "EDGE is a great network for mail and maps, but it's not great for surfing on the web, which is why we built in Wi-Fi", said Steve Jobs.

When questioned as to why Apple had not gone for a single operator in across Europe, Jobs told Pocket-lint: "We feel we have made the best choices for the markets that we are in".