OK, UK iPhone fans, O2 has released its iPhone 3G S pricing plans for monthly and Pay & Go customers. Depending on your plan, your 16GB or 32GB iPhone 3G S could be free (but you'll be paying a healthy monthly tab).

The full details for monthly and Pay & Go plans are on O2's site, but here's the rundown:

The 16GB iPhone 3G S will cost you anywhere from £184.23 (about $300US) to £0 on an 18-month contract. If you are willing to sign a 24-month contract, you'll pay either £87.11 (about $141US) for the 16GB iPhone 3G S or get it for free.

The 32GB iPhone 3G S will range between £274.23 (~$444US) and £96.89 (~$158US) for an 18-month contract and £175.19 (~$283) and £0 for a 24-month contract. Contract prices range between £29.38 (~$48US) and £73.41 (~$120US) for 18-month terms and £34.26 (~$55US) and £73.41 (~$120US) for 24-month terms. All plans include unlimited UK data and WiFi.

UK Pay & Go customers can get the 16GB iPhone 3G S for £440.40 (~$715) and the 32GB iPhone 3G S for £538.30 (~$874). If you purchase an iPhone 3G S with Pay & Go, you'll get a year of unlimited web and Wi-Fi for free.

As in the US, your upgrade options will depend on when your contract is up, though the O2 site says that you can usually upgrade during the last month of your term.

So UK readers, will you be getting an iPhone 3G S on June 19th? Let us know in the comments!

The folks behind the popular Aurora Feint series of iPhone games have decided to share their work creating a "social MMO" system on the iPhone with other developers. They've just announced a system called "OpenFeint," which other devs will be able to license and use in their own games. OpenFeint will supposedly allow a developer to put together a multiplayer community in an iPhone app, complete with profiles, news boards and chat, in under an hour. They're also providing a server for developers to use, so devs won't have to host their own server software -- they'll just have to make their client work with the existing system.

Wild. It sounds like they're just making the systems they've already developed in their own games available to anyone who wants to use them. Right now, they're looking at a private beta (interested devs can sign up on their site), and eventually the service will be free for a limited number of users, with certain costs as the userbase grows.

The cynical side of us wonders if there's a catch in there somewhere -- presumably, all of the users in OpenFeint will keep their information on the Aurora Feint-owned server, so we'd guess there's a chance that at some point in the future, they could use that list for less-than-honorable actions (Steve Demeter's Onyx Online plan is another service that aims to be platform-wide, which seems to have similar risks). But that's just us being paranoid -- taken at face value, this just seems like one team of indie developers opening up what they've already done to help other devs. Very cool.

MacNN reports that Rogers Wireless will be revising its iPhone plans on October 1 to include a new 250 minute plan for $60, among other changes.

The new bundles, MacNN says, would feature a $60 plan with:

• 250 daytime minutes
• 75 texts
• 1GB data
• Visual Voicemail
• three months of unlimited local calling
• a permanent MY5 Local option

A $75 plan may also be available, with 400 minutes, 100 texts, and 2GB data.

Early on, Rogers has had a rocky relationship with iPhone customers, many of whom are unhappy with the relatively high cost of plan rates and miniscule data allowances.

Canadian readers: Is this an improvement, or does Rogers still have a long way to go? Let us know by leaving a comment.

Remember when the first generation iPhone was released and people found themselves traveling overseas only to return to a large bill from AT&T? Well, TimesOnline is weighing in on the possible problems of data roaming and the iPhone 3G.

As it turns out, 3G bandwidth is, shall we say, expensive. TimesOnline said O2's (Apple's iPhone carrier in the UK) 3G data roaming charges go up to almost £3 (~ $6 US) per megabyte when downloaded from a country within the EU; worldwide roaming is almost £6 (~ $12 US) per Mb.

So, to put things into perspective, if you go overseas and download a 50MB file via your phone (such as audio or a short movie) then you will be spending over $600 US for that file. TUAW would like to take a moment and remind everyone about the Data Roaming Off switch in your settings. This can save you an expensive mistake (i.e. having to sell your kidney to pay your iPhone's roaming bill).

[via MacRumors]

If you've held off so far, this week's new iPhone announcements may sway you to re-consider moving your phone service to iPhone. So what will this decision cost you? The phone cost is the least significant factor. Whether the 8GB iPhone sells for $200 or $400 subsidized or $400 or $800 unsubsidized only minimally affects your other out of pocket costs over two years.

Read on for the facts and figures that will help you make a decision.

We seem to have an answer to one of our biggest questions: Can you buy an iPhone and just use the built in WiFi and iPod features? Apparently not. According to the small print on Apple's rate plan webpage, you need to purchase a 2 year wireless service plan. This means your iPhonePod will cost you at least ($60/month * 24 months) + $500/iPhone = $1940 + $36 activation fee + tax. That's a might pricey even if unsurprising (and close to what Scott predicted). Although most media phones like Chocolate and its compatriots seem to have the same constraints, it just seems unnecessary and cruel. TUAW gives Apple's "Minimum new 2-year wireless service plan and activation fee required to activate iPhone features including iPod" a big old hometown raspberry. Boo!

Thanks to Kevin Reylek for tracking down the Activation fee.

Update: I just got off the phone with Mark Siegel of AT&T. Siegel states that all existing iPhone customers must upgrade to a new two year contract. According to Siegel, the clock starts over regardless of whether the customer is a GoPhone customer, on an existing family plan, or so forth. What remains unclear to me is if you can buy the GoPhone and agree to the 2 year commitment for the data only.

Update 2: If you *can* sign up as an existing AT&T GoPhone customer and just get the data plan, the best deal I can work out is (using "Replace a phone on my account with this iPhone"): $500 (iPhone) + $200 (2 1-year $100 cards at 25 cents per minute, includes disposable phone with purchase) + $20/month data * 24 = $1180 for 2 years plus any additional phone time via prepaid cards.

A recent study shows that the iPhone's price point might drive away potential customers. Macworld writes about a survey by Compete, which tells us more or less what we already know: if they gave away free iPhones in boxes of Lucky Charms, we'd be all magically delicious over those things like white on rice or green on clovers or yellow on moons or pink on hearts, but at $500 we're all "would you take $200-$299 instead? Please?"

Analysts in the Macworld article suggest that early adopters might pay a premium before the price drops for the mass market. In related news, David recently posted about a possible contract-contingent price break.