World of Apple

On the back of rumours of an iPhone price cut in the UK, O2 has announced that it will be introducing new 24-month tariffs starting April 3.

Customers who sign up to the 24 month tariff can get the 8GB iPhone 3G for free at £34.26 per month and the 16GB iPhone 3G for free at £44.05 per month.

The tariffs have the same benefits as an 18-month tariff including visual voicemail, unlimited UK data and unlimited access to over 9,500 public Wi-Fi hotspots.

UK based Mobile website is reporting that O2 will tweak the pricing of the iPhone in May, ahead of a new iPhone in June or July.

According to Mobile the iPhone 3G which is currently between £59 and £159 upfront will drop to free on tariffs of £35 and £45.

The report goes onto mention that Orange is in talks with Apple to allow the iPhone to be available from both O2 and Orange in the UK. Orange currently sells the iPhone in 27 other countries including France and Poland.

UK iPhone carrier O2 has announced that it has sold over one million iPhones while at the same time reported a 10% rise in revenues.

O2 which is owned by Spanish firm Telefónica gained 390,000 new mobile phone customers in the last quarter of 2008 strengthening its position as the UK’s largest mobile phone carrier.

O2 began selling the iPhone in November 2007 and has now sold over a million iPhones with no signs of sales slowing.

“iPhone sales are continuing to accelerate,” said Matthew Key, chairman and chief executive of Telefónica Europe. “And we have been pretty stunned at the results of our pre-pay offer, which is £342.33 for a year’s data usage included.”

O2 UK has today finally revealed details of how the iPhone 3G will be priced on it’s pay-as-you-go tariffs as well as when the device will be available.

O2 has announced that the unsubsidised iPhone 3G will be available for £350 ($630) and £400 ($720) for the 8GB and 16GB models.

Although once signed up users won’t be forced into a contract, they will be obliged to top-up an amount each month to receive a certain amount of benefits.

Paying between £10 and £14 each month will see users receiving a bonus 500 minutes of call time to any UK home phone or O2 mobile; paying between £15 and £29 adds 1,000 minutes under the same terms, while £30 or more provides unlimited calls.

Unlimited Internet access within the UK, including 3G and O2 Wi-Fi, is free for the first year of service but will cost £10 per month afterwards. Text messages aren’t included and cost 10p each.

The iPhone 3G will be available on pay-as-you-go from O2 starting September 16th.

O2 announced during their Q2 financial results last week that the company has gained over 137,000 new subscribers who are on a monthly contract. The new subscribers were reportedly gained solely from the iPhone.

The figure represents a 80.8% increase in subscribers for the same quarter the year before.

Additionally O2 stated that they have a “multi-year” contract with Apple to sell the iPhone exclusively in the UK after rumours pointed towards Orange picking up the exclusivity before the years end. Adding that the iPhone had not been on sale for a full year in the UK.

Electric Pig claims that the exclusive agreement between O2 and Apple in the UK is due to “time-out” by the end of the year. The site also claims that “credible sources” have said that Orange intends to step-in as a second carrier.

According to the site Orange could begin offering the iPhone 3G as soon as October.

Orange already sells the iPhone in France, Austria, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and Africa.

Macenstein has published an email from O2 sales director, Stephen Shurrock. The email is an apology for the poor service offered during O2’s pre-order fiasco earlier this week.

Shurrock goes into some detail on how O2 strengthened its online systems and tested them prior to launch:

we had invested heavily to add a huge amount of additional capacity, 250 times its normal rate, and back-up systems. We tested this carefully in advance. The massive simultaneous crush, partly created by our open and honest communications approach with the registered community, exceeded even our worst case assumptions. Demand was at 13,000 orders per second. Frankly, we have to admit we just weren’t prepared for this unprecedented level of demand. No website is.

The email continues to state that the next opportunity to purchase an iPhone 3G in the UK will be Friday morning although the director states that “it is likely that stock will be in very short supply for some weeks to come.” and “The amount of devices [per store] will vary… on average a few dozen iPhones in each”.

Full email below.

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O2 has released a press release confirming this mornings issues when the official carrier of the iPhone 3G in the UK had to pull its online pre-ordering system.

O2 writes that demand for the revolutionary device is already at unprecedented levels, far in excess of the original iPhone.

“We’ve never seen any mobile device create the excitement and demand of the iPhone 3G,” said Ronan Dunne, CEO of O2 in the UK. “We want to ensure that everyone who wants an iPhone 3G can get one so we’ll be working with Apple to continually replenish our supplies throughout the summer.”

In response to this mornings issues, O2 confirms that the response was so great that the online store completely sold out of iPhone 3Gs within just a few hours. Though O2 had invested several million pounds to increase the order capacity of the site (with order processing capacity increased by over 250 times its normal rate), at times the site still couldn’t process the sheer weight of demand.

Full press release below.

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Early this morning O2 sent out texts and emails to those who had registered their interest in either upgrading to or purchasing a new iPhone. The messages informed those eligible that pre-orders were now open online.

“If you want to place your order, all you need do is click on the link below on your Mac or PC, select the tariff, select the iPhone 3G model and sign a new 18-month contract online,” stated O2 in its email to users.

The pre-order service was immediately struck with issues and was taken offline, the service was later resumed but again began to crumble and now users visiting the O2 website are greeted with a message stating that “due to huge demand for the iPhone 3G, we’re currently out of stock.” O2 advises those wishing to pre-order to come back on July 10.

Vodafone in New Zealand has announced via email that the iPhone 3G will be available at 1 minute past minute on July 11 at three of its stores (Queen St, Lambton Quay, Columbo St), other Vodafone stores will begin selling the iPhone 3G at 9am that same morning. The online Vodafone store will also begin accepting orders at 12.01am on July 11.

On the other side of the world, O2 has begun accepting pre-orders in the UK. iPhone 3G’s ordered online will be delivered on July 11 and will be able to be activated via iTunes at home.

Despite accidentally revealing the price of pay-as-you-go iPhone’s last week O2 has now confirmed that the units won’t be available until “later this year”.