Vodafone sells 100K iPhones in 7 days

In Ireland is still not sold by Vodafone, any news on that?

After my 18 month iPhone 3G contract with O2 finished, I switched to Vodafone as soon as I could, the difference it has made cannot be understated. Comparing side by side with my friend's iPhone 3GS on O2, my Vodafone iPhone 3G can load maps over twenty times faster (literally) than a 3GS on O2. (In central London).

My iPhone 3G feels like a brand new device now that I'm free from O2.

Switched off AT&T -kept iPhone for all the fun, but moved to Verizon for the phone. Using an HTC Touch Pro 2, which though works nicely and never drops calls, beggars belief in that Windows Mobile still exists! The only nice thing about it is I found an app on Handango that will allow me to turn the TP2 into a mobile wifi hotspot -which means all my GPS golf apps on my iPhone will once again play!

All of this is moot once Verizon gets Apple. Hopefully, Apple will curb Verizon's urge to cripple all the functionality out of the iPhone (think Verizon iPhone App store).

Hopefully this will force O2 to spend some money on upgrading their shitty network. Anyone who disagrees with this comment probably doesn't live in central London where about 1 in 4 people have an iPhone.

It is unlikely that Apple would give AT&T the boot. It is far more plausible that Apple would simply add additional carriers as opportunities arise to supplement AT&T, but giving them the heave-ho makes zero sense whether it be from a customer retention standpoint or a business growth standpoint.

I live in the UK, have had the iPhone since day one (when it was only available in the USA!). Its safe to say, the UK has steamed past the USA now for flexibility.

Ironically, Apple need not bother locking iPhones in the UK now, because the handset is available on all (compatible) networks apart from T-Mobile, but T-Mobile are supposed to be merging with Orange (if allowed), so basically all networks then!

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for my friends state-side that tomorrow you will have a date to be un-shackled ;-)

If Apple had a 5 year deal with Orange in France, then I would think that Apple might have one with AT&T... could be wrong, but that's what it seems like to me, I already doubt that Verizon will get the iPhone, at least not for another 2+ years, until LTE is widely available.

The real problem is, and has always been AT&T. They have always, ALWAYS lagged behind in getting their 3G up to snuff, and the iPhone 3G is 1 1/2 years old. They simply have not updated the capacity of their network to meet the demand. The original iPhone was EDGE only of course, but you'd think that the volume it sold would've been a wake up call to the data volume the 3G version would use. Instead, AT&T lags behind, and consumer feels it's the phone, not the network.

Verizon should be able to handle it, but there's two clear disadvantages. One, without the inclusion of a GSM radio, international roaming is out. Also, in the states, using CDMA means you can't use the radio for data and voice at the same time. When I canned Sprint, I knew the simultaneous voice/data was a key feature in my new carrier. Choice is good though I guess, even if it wipes out something being featured in all the adverts.

It's not that they made a dark pact with AT&T, it's that the US is screwed up. In most of the world, GSM rules. In the US there's only two large GSM carriers, AT&T and T-Mobile. And T-Mobile uses non-standard 3G bands.

In order to expand to other large carriers in the US, Apple has to either create a CDMA version of the phone, switch GSM chipsets to one that supports T-Mobile's 3G or switch to a chipset that does all of those. And that costs more money, likely uses more power, etc.

So in Europe, where it's GSM everywhere, you can get network competition. In the US where only one vendor uses the global standard, you don't. Both Verizon and AT&T _are_ moving to the global LTE standard for 4G. When that happens you'll have an equal standards footing between those two carriers.

@racco
True, but you still have a choice of buying from 4 Vendors instead of one.