Btw, TMO members from UK, how well do the O2 iPhone plans stack up to the competition, if comparable rates can be found?  I was a little surprised that the 35-pound plan was even offered, given only 200 minutes/text messages a month, but is that the way things work over there?

Yes I think the voice allowance is a bit mean too.. its my chief concern (such as they are) and seems unnecessarily tight fisted.

[quote author=“DawnTreader”]What about the release date? Should we expect lines in Britain and Ireland?

I don’t think so, at least not like in the US. It isn’t a new product; the prime candidates to queue have either taken, or decided against the opportunity to buy from the USA and unlock. And we don’t have the weather for queuing in November.

I would have queued for it, but having reviewed all the information, I’ve just bought a 4G iPhone pre-unlocked from ebay. My typical cellphone bill is under $10 (except when I go abroad). I simply don’t want a $70 contract; 99% of my use will be WiFi; I’ll probably subscribe to The Cloud (GBP7/month).

So I think the release day will be an anticlimax, but demand will nevertheless be steady. Although some of the UK press pieces are plain silly, I do think SJ may have slightly misjudged this in the UK. But the product is so strong it doesn’t matter long term.

About the competitiveness of the plans; they seem competitive. The only issue is that many people may not realise why they should want unlimited data, and that is a significant element of the cost.

Europeans are more cafe centric than Americans. In the US coffee shops are about the only place where once can get a WI-FI signal,and are also the only place people spend any time outside of their office or home (except when dining or shopping). But in Europe there is more of a tradition of sidewalk cafes, coffee shops, and other social centers. A good WI-FI network will make the iPhone more alluring, more so than in the states where WI-FI isn’t that wide spread.