World of Apple

O2 has confirmed that it has sold 2 million iPhones in the UK since it began sales in November 2007. Matthew Key, the chief executive of Telefonica Europe, and Ronan Dunne, chief executive of O2 UK had told reporters in embargoed comments.

The executives also spoke about how they are still seeing benefits from the early exclusivity the carrier held over the iPhone. “It will take a long time before that goes away,” Dunne said.

In addition it is rumoured that O2 is in talks with Apple to offer the 3G iPad in the UK. Although it is also said that an exclusive agreement is unlikely despite AT&T currently having the device in the U.S.

The WiFi version of the iPad will debut in the UK in March with the 3G version following in April, according to Apple.

Mobile network operator O2 in the UK has owned up and apologised to customers who have suffered poor network availability and reliability in London.

In an interview with the Financial Times O2 executive director Ronan Dunne admitted that some customers in London were unable to make or receive calls and the transfer of data was slow and unreliable because of pressure placed on O2’s network from smartphones.

O2 stated that the situation occurred in the second half of the year and has now been rectified with a £30 million investment in the capital during December to help improve network capacity. Detailing the improvements further O2 said that it was working with its infrastructure supplier Nokia Siemens Networks on software modifications, installing 200 additional mobile base stations in London. O2 will also liaise with smartphone manufacturers to become aware of heavy usage applications.

In the article O2 failed to recognise a country wide issue with multiple outages occurring across the country during 2009.

“Where we haven’t met our own high standards, then there’s no question, we apologize to customers for that fact,” said Dunne. “But it would be wrong to say O2 has failed its customers en masse.”

In an question and answer session with Times online readers, O2 head Matthew Key spoke about the iPhone and how the company is addressing network issues.

When asked about how O2 was handling losing the exclusivity of the iPhone Key responded by saying that O2 will allow current iPhone owners to unlock their iPhones for use on other UK networks.

, we will allow O2 customers to unlock their iPhones, although of course they will still need to honour any outstanding contract period they have. At the end of their contract period, they are entirely free to move to another operator

Additionally when asked about poor 3G network coverage across the UK Key outlined some of O2’s future plans for network capacity expansion. In particular in London where capacity has been stretched severely in the last few months. The O2 boss said that the UK carrier had seen an 18-fold increase in data usage over the last year and would start by investing £30 million to “address capacity issues in London alone between now and Christmas and I’m confident that we’ll see much improved levels of service as a result.”

Following the news that Orange would begin selling the iPhone in the UK, Vodafone has also followed suit and announced that it will begin selling the iPhone 3G and 3GS in the UK and Ireland starting in early 2010.

Further pricing will be available nearer the time.

O2 who is currently the exclusive carrier of the iPhone in the UK is expected to lose its exclusivity of the device at the end of November.

According to O2 in the UK Apple is set to release a patch that addresses a serious vulnerability in the iPhone’s SMS application. Yesterday it was revealed at the Black Hat convention that through an SMS message hackers could fully control any iPhone in the world.

The BBC is reporting that a patch will be available through iTunes on Saturday, an O2 spokesman said, “We always recommend our customers update their iPhone with the latest software and this is no different.”

The vulnerability was first revealed over a month ago and Apple has yet to act on the seriousness of the flaw.

[Update] A forum post on O2’s official forums confirms that iPhone OS 3.0.1 will be available to download via iTunes at 11pm UK time.

This week there have been numerous reports that suggest O2 in the UK is coming to the end of its exclusive agreement to sell the iPhone. Neither of the two reports match up in there details which does cast doubt upon the rumours.

The first report from Mobile Today states that both T-Mobile and Orange in the UK are in talks with Apple to begin selling the iPhone 3G. The deal would mean that O2 remains the exclusive seller of the iPhone 3GS. Mobile Today reports that the move will come into play in early September. Also of interest Mobile Today writes at the end of its report that Apple and O2’s two year exclusive agreement is due to end in September.

Another report this week from The Guardian rumours that T-Mobile will “snatch iPhone from O2″, the report contains no mention of Orange or a differentiation between the iPhone 3G and 3GS. If true it would mean that O2 has come to the end of an exclusive agreement with Apple in the UK.

A message on O2 UK’s website states that the exclusive partner to Apple in the UK has run dry of all iPhone 3GS stock.

The message appeared towards the end of last week and states that stock is expected to return “at the end of this week.”

A similar message has also appeared on Fido’s website, the Canadian carrier states that stock will be available in the “coming weeks.”

Apple retail stores in both Canada and UK appear to have healthy stock of the iPhone 3GS.

O2 has issued a press release stating that the iPhone 3GS which went on sale at 9.02 a.m. in the UK had outsold the number of iPhone 3G units sold on launch day last year; all before lunchtime.

O2 expects that by the end of business on Friday they will have sold 50% more iPhone 3GS models than iPhone 3G devices at last years launch. This also caused a footfall ten times that of the average and a 150% surge in visitors to the carriers website.

O2 UK has posted the pricing for the new iPhone 3GS on its website, they are offering pricing for both Pay Monthly and Pay as you Go customers.

For Pay Montly customers who are looking to have a 24 month contract the iPhone 3GS 16GB will cost £87 on the £35 per month tariff and will be free on all the others. The iPhone 3GS 32GB will cost at most £175 or as little as £0.

For those Pay Monthly customers who wish to only have an 18 month contract the iPhone 3GS 16GB will start at £185 and work its way down to free, the 32GB model will be at most £274 down to £97 on a £73 per month tariff.

For customers wishing to pick up an iPhone 3GS on Pay as you Go, the 16GB model will cost £440.40 and the 32GB £538.30.

O2 will also be offering MMS and Internet tethering. An MMS message will cost four normal texts on Pay Monthly where are PAYG users will pay a hefty 25p.

O2 will only offer iPhone tethering with an applicable bolt on, a 3GB bolt on will cost £15 a month with a 10GB capped bolt on costing £29 per month.

The iPhone 3GS will be available in O2 stores, O2 online store, Apple retail stores and Carphone Warehouse stores on June 19.

During today’s WWDC keynote Apple introduced the new iPhone 3GS, the fastest, most powerful iPhone yet, packed with incredible new features including improved speed and performance—up to twice as fast as iPhone 3G—with longer battery life, a high-quality 3 megapixel autofocus camera, easy to use video recording and hands free voice control. iPhone 3GS includes the new iPhone OS 3.0, the world’s most advanced mobile operating system with over 100 new features such as Cut, Copy and Paste, MMS, Spotlight Search, landscape keyboard and more. iPhone 3GS customers get access to more than 50,000 applications from Apple’s revolutionary App Store, the largest application store in the world where customers have already downloaded over one billion apps. iPhone 3GS offers twice the capacity for the same price with a 16GB model for just $199 and a new 32GB model for just $299. And beginning today, iPhone 3G is available at the breakthrough price of just $99 for the 8GB model—a huge milestone for the high end smartphone market.

“iPhone 3GS is the fastest, most powerful iPhone yet and we think people will love the incredible new features including autofocus camera, video recording and the freedom of voice control,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of WorldWide Product Marketing. “And with a breakthrough price of $99, we are thrilled to get iPhone 3G into the hands of even more users who want them.”

iPhone 3GS offers incredible speed and performance, on average up to twice as fast as iPhone 3G, so you can render web pages quicker and launch applications faster. iPhone 3GS takes advantage of the OpenGL ES 2.0 standard for stunning high-quality 3D graphics, making mobile gaming and other graphic intense applications better than ever. iPhone 3GS is not only faster, but with longer battery life you can watch more videos, listen to more music, browse the Internet or keep using your favorite apps even longer. The new iPhone 3GS also supports 7.2 Mbps HSDPA for faster networking speeds.

iPhone 3GS features a new 3 megapixel autofocus camera that takes amazing pictures and video, making it easier than ever to capture, edit and share those moments instantly with family and friends. The new autofocus camera adjusts focus, exposure, color and contrast for the best possible image and includes an automatic macro focus for extra close up shots. With the new “tap to focus” feature, you simply touch the display to select an object or area of interest and the camera automatically re-adjusts focus and exposure. You can record incredible high-quality video clips and edit them right on your iPhone 3GS by simply trimming the start and stop points. With iPhone 3GS you can send photos and video by email or MMS and post them to MobileMe or YouTube with just one tap.

The voice control feature in iPhone 3GS offers hands free operation for both iPhone and iPod functions. Simply speak the appropriate commands into the built-in microphone or headset microphone to dial by name or number. With voice control you can play your favorite music by artist, album or playlist and activate the Genius feature by saying “play more songs like this.” You can also tell iPhone to pause the music, play the next track, turn on shuffle or ask, “What’s playing right now?”

iPhone 3GS features a new built-in digital compass for instant navigation. The Compass app shows you which way you are headed and rotates as you change direction. You can orient yourself to true north or magnetic north, and iPhone’s built-in GPS automatically displays the coordinates of your current location. The new built-in digital compass is also integrated within Maps, so it automatically orients any map to the direction you are facing.

iPhone 3GS provides new accessibility features including VoiceOver, a screen reader that speaks what appears on the iPhone 3GS display, enabling visually impaired users to make calls, read email, browse web pages, play music and run applications. The new universal Zoom function magnifies the entire screen, and the White on Black feature reverses the colors on screen to provide higher contrast for people with low vision. iPhone 3GS also supports Mono Audio which combines left and right audio channels so that they can be heard in both earbuds for those with hearing loss in one ear.

Phone 3G S will be available in the US on June 19 for a suggested retail price of $199 (US) for the 16GB model and just $299 (US) for the new 32GB model in both Apple and AT&T’s retail and online stores. iPhone 3GS will be available in the UK on June 19 with pricing available later.