After the storm: iPhone & the U.K.

September 18th was perhaps one of the most hotly-anticipated days for us Apple-loving Brits. The iPhone, arguably one of the most hyped and hotly anticipated mobile phone handsets, was rumoured to be coming to our fair isle. Our resident iPhone code-guru Erica posted after the event on the most disappointing aspect of the announcement - the lack of 3G despite its prevalence this side of the pond, the contract pricing, and the 30% coverage of O2 EDGE services in the U.K. Let's take a look at these concerns, and see whether they are unfounded.

Pricing

Until today, we couldn't compare the iPhone contact with other existing O2 offering, but pricing for the 'unlimited' data packages was released this morning (which, if you're an existing customer, will be available on October 1st). Looking through the package for a single mobile device (other than the iPhone) on 'unlimited' data, O2 is charging £7.50 ($15US) per month, with a fair use policy coming into play above a stingy 200MB (1,400 pages) per month. Contrast that with the iPhone deal, which according to O2 CEO Matthew Key would require you to use 1,400 pages per day to incur the wrath of the fair use policy - if the figures are correct, that's about 200MB a day.

To compare the costs of an iPhone and a competitor, I went to the O2 online store. The common nemisis to iPhone is the Nokia N95, so I chose that with the most similar package to the iPhone package (200 minutes) available - the Online 25 package - and then stacked that up with Cloud WiFi and the new data package (remembering that the N95 is on a far less generous 'unlimited' data package).

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