MacFormat is blogging live at the Apple Special Event today from London's Regent Street Apple Store. We're sitting in the audience and listening to Apple's announcement right now.
Steve Jobs himself is here to do the announcement. Everybody claps
Here's the big news of the day - yes, it's the iPhone in the UK!
The big question everybody wants answered are:
1) Do we get 3G ahead of our US-cousins? The answer is... no - it's Edge.
2) Carrier is O2.
3) Price: 8GB only, the price is £269!
On sale Nov. 9th.
We watch a UK specific ad. Then another...everybody claps. And a third!
Matthew Key, CEO of O2 comes on. He lacks Jobs' appeal, but does a decent job. Announces Carphone warehouse distribution deal. 90% of the population within a 20 minute drive of a store selling the iPhone.
No mention of the rest of Europe - just UK. Other countries by next quarter.
3 Tariffs
£35,
£45,
£55 tariff, all with unlimted data.
If you're not with O2, dont' worry, you can keep your current number when you upgrade to iPhone.
Dedicated care facility in the UK, specifically for iPhone customers.
7,500 hotspot deal, in the UK, no logging in and messing around, your phone will just connect. First mention of Edge network, I suspect that means there's no 3G.
Steve and Matthew take quesitons.
Q) Why no 3G?
"As you know the iPhone doesn't currently support 3G, so why didn't we build it in? The 3G chipsets work reasonably well except for power, they're real power hogs." - Jobs.
Jobs would like the battery life up to 5 hours before he puts 3G in the iPhone. Edge works great for mail, Google Maps, the one thing you'd like to go a little faster is the Internet. "So instead of cutting the battery life way down we built in WiFi."
"We think that's the best solution right now, so that's why we chose it". - Jobs.
Q) The 7,500 hotspots - do we have to pay for those?
It's The Cloud, and it's all part of the tariff with O2. Completely seamless.
"Most people have WiFi at home and WiFi at work, this will help for the places inbetween."
Q) Starbucks deal in the UK?
Jobs - "You'll have to talk to Starbcuks about that!"
Q) Activation - through iTunes?
Same as US, so yes.
Q) New purple iTunes icon on the phone - what's that?
It's a new application, not yet on iPhone - will be updated via software update, works over WiFi, connect to iTunes Store, so will come to all iPhones for free.
Q) Contract length? Is unlimited truely unlimited?
Contract length: Each contract is 18 month. In terms of unlimited, they have a 'Fair usage' policy, like everybody else.
Q) How concerned are you about hacks with unlocking the phone.
"A constant cat and mouse game we play. People will try to break in and it's our job to keep them from breaking in."
Q) Will there be Edge nationwide?
"We're investing in Edge, we're in the process of rolling that out. At launch, we'll be north of 30%"
Q) £269 is more expensive that US.
US price doesn't include Sales Tax, while UK does - VAT. "It's more expensive to do business here".
Q) Will it roll out to other countries?
A few countries in Europe by next Quarter". Won't give any more details than that. Carrier in other countries not announced either.
Q) Considered opening up the iPhone to other applications?
Already doing that with the Web 2.0 standards. We're looking at opening it more intimately, but we haven't made firm decisions. Jobs talks about how 3rd party developers can potentially screw up the phone in some way, so they want to play it safe.
Q) Any assurances about cutting the price after Nov. 9th?
"In technology there's never any guarantees! If you wait to buy something looking over the horizon you'll never buy anything."
Q) Should we be disapointed in 2Megapixel camera?
It turns out the camera is great - let's not get into a war of pixels. If you have enought light this camera takes beautiful pictures.
