O2 will be losing the exclusivity on the iPhone in the UK to Orange and T-Mobile as early as September 2009 although it looks like only the older version of the iPhone will be initially freed.

Both Orange and T-Mobile have been selling the iPhone 3G in a numbers of territories worldwide and Mobile Today understands that Apple is keen to boost sales significantly. Orange should be the logical choice since it is significantly larger than the Deutsch-Telekom owned mobile network.

Sources close to O2 say that the senior management at the network are apparently furious at the news and concerned that whoever picks up the iPhone 3G will end up forcing O2 to slash the contract price of the old iPhone 3G.

This of course could prove catastrophic as punters decide to stick to the older iPhone 3G and ignore the newer and faster iPhone 3GS. This is especially true if (a) the recession goes on for another year (b) if the gap between the two is significant.

The cheapest iPhone 3G contract will cost you ￡34.26 per month on a two year contract. It is likely that the competition shaves another ￡5 from the cost and brings it to less than ￡30.

The…

Now in its third generation, the iPhone handset has made improvements with each successive model. This year, though, the improvements are less about what you see and more about what’s packed under the chassis–and what’s available in the iPhone OS 3.0 software update (accessible to current iPhone owners and on new iPhone 3G S units).
That’s not to say that the iPhone 3G S isn’t good. In fact, this new model is among the best handsets on the market today. Still, the 3G S’s combination of hardware and software continues to miss the mark in a few critical areas, and these deficiencies prevent the iPhone from leaping far ahead the competition.
1. Mass Storage Connectivity

Why can’t I connect an iPhone to my PC and then drag and drop files onto it? Apple says that it has considered introducing a disk mode, of the type found on all iPods, but feels that the iPhone’s audience doesn’t require one. I disagree. Early adopters and the enterprise workers that Apple is targeting (now that iPhone 3G S has hardware encryption and other enterprise-friendly features) would greatly appreciate direct-to-device file transfers. Plus, the capability would simplify transferring photos and other relevant data files (such as Excel…