The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

Make your mind, gosh...do so please ;)

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England != UK.

Thats like us calling the states New York instead of America.

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haha! nice correction!

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Subtle, but hilarious title.

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I sincerely hope O2 don't get the contract. Their customer service ranks somewhere below NTL Virgin Media's.


It's not hugely surprising if they do, though, being owned by Telefonica, who have a reasonable past relationship with Apple.

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Come on Orange! I think Orange are the most competent operator in the UK. There customer services is better than most and their shop outlets are among the most knowledgeable. Plus I started an 18mth contract with them in Feb ;-)

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Or like the ENGLISH calling the United States "America" all the time, like, I was in America, over in America, etc. Hello, it's the United States, or U.S.

America is a continent, like North America, or South America. Irish people I know never seem to make this mistake.

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^^ Alex... I think you'll find there are quite a few Americans who refer to America on a regular basis, including the President. The English pick it up hearing its regular usage among their American friends.

Back on topic, the UK press is giving the O2 contract broad coverage. It's more likely that the deal is done but no one at O2 is confirming anything until Apple makes the official announcement.

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Yeah, being Scottish myself, it does kinda irk when I see the UK referred to as 'England'. Kinda unforgivable since the UK is made up of THREE distinct countries, and an annexed bit of another country's mainland.

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To be honest, I don't really mind who it goes to so long as I don't end up with the carriers nasty little iPhone design spoiling logos. Here in the UK they have a habit of putting little orange or red squares on our handsets and they can really hinder the look of them!

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Thank you for correcting "England" to say UK. It makes me cringe everytime I hear someone refer to this country as "England".

An American friend asked me what the deal was with England, the UK, Great Britain, etc. And admittedly, it is confusing - even to folk who live here! Here's how I explained it:

The United Kingdom is the name of the nation. It is overseen by the government in Westminster. This could be compared, somewhat, to the Fedral Government in DC.

The UK is made up of 4 countries, a bit like how the USA is made up of 50 states.

The 4 countries are: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Three of these have their own governments, comparable somewhat to the State governments in the USA which have limited powers.

The English come from England. The Scottish come from Scotland. The Welsh from Wales. The Northern Irish from Northern Ireland. All of these people are also British. This is a bit like how a man from Texas can be Texan AND American at the same time. So, for example, I'm English AND British.

The name Britain, geographically, just means the island of Britain, and excludes Northern Ireland. But when used in a political sense, the person usually means the UK. But strictly, this name is incorrect.

The name Great Britain, strictly speaking, is now used as a geographical term. It is simply the biggest island of the geographical area called the British Isles, and does not include Northern Ireland. That is why originally, the domain name for this country was going to be .gb until people pointed out that .gb, or Great Britain, missed off one of the four countries as Northern Ireland is not in the geographical island of Great Britain, it is in the geographical island of Ireland. So it was changed many years ago to .uk

This may seem trivial, but there has been several occasions where this issue is really annoying. For example, when filling out an application form on the web (to join a website, or order goods, or whatever), you have to select your country from a list.

Sometimes one has to scrol up and down the huge long list of countries trying to figure out what the hell they've decided to call this country since it's not listed under UK. England? Great Britain? Britain? British Isles? I once saw it listed under countries beginning with T, calling it "The United Kingdom". I mean, come one. Would you list the USA under A for America? Or T for The United States? Or just list "New York State"?

Come on, it's simple. U for United Kingdom, listed alphabetically just above United States of America!

I've even seen delivery order forms for goods that only has "England" in the drop-down list of countries. So I guess they don't want any business from the 10 million people living in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, then! How on earth are you meant to get something delivered if you live in Scotland, and the website prints "England" in big letters at the bottom of your address? Some eBay sellers say they will deliver stuff to "England", but make no mention of the other three countries. What are buyers from the rest of the UK meant to think? Is there some reason why they can deliver to one part of this country, but not the other three parts? They probably just lose bidders.

I know this may seem pedantic, but really, it's only the name of a country, and it's been the called "United Kingdom" since the year 1707. It's simple. Might as well get it right. :)

Regards,
Al
From the United Kingdom

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Oh please God let it not be O2. They screwed me over so much last year I don't think I could bring myself to go back to them! T-Mobile or preferably Vodafone gets my vote.

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I think everyone will have a horror story about all the UK mobile carriers. I've never used T-Mobile, but they're the only company I've had constant cold calls from which automatically put me off them.

Most O2 users I know have left and moved to Orange.

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You mean the United Kingdom, not England. They're not the same thing.

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To confuse the whole thing even more (YEY!)

@al - not everyone from N.Ireland want to be referred to as 'British', I consider myself Irish as does my passport.

And I do hope O2 get the iPhone deal, it would save me having to deal with nasty Vodafone.

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O2 says it does not have an iPhone contract with Apple but how does this contradict earlier reports? Timesonline stated that "the final contract is expected to be signed imminently."

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Sorry guys, but latest news is O2 did get the iPhone contract:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6272226.stm

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Actually, 'England' is about all O2 covers, up here in Scotland, O2's coverage can best be described as 'patchy'. Great when you don't want your other half disturbing your pint in the Cambridge, not so good when you're trying to show off your iPhone.

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"The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland not including her overseas territories"

Otherwise know as the UK or GBR

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hey i love o2 there the best and there always help full im in the lake district and wen i go camping in thebottom of mountans i always get signal wen no other networks do there very cheap t-mobile rubbish couvarage so is vig=rgin(same mast users) orange expensive orite couvarage vodafone shit couvarage no 3g in some citys like carlsile expensive and horrid o2 mint complaint about my current fone i bought and they rang me back and said i could keep my old fone and pick an new fone for the same price lol

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