“A new 3G (European) version of the iPhone will be launched Monday in the UK by Apple – in a join promotion with Vodafone, T-Mobile of Germany, and Carphone Warehouse. It should answer the disappointment with the US version of the iPhone which has been widely slammed for its poor performance as a phone,” Guy J. Kewney blogs for newswireless.net.
MacDailyNews Take: Kewney’s description, “widely slammed,” seems a bit over the top. The network speed has been mentioned as a disappointment (especially when compared to iPhone’s on-board Wi-Fi performance, which blows away 3G, of course) in some initial hands-on reviews, of which there have been just four so far. The jury is still out on how it will perform after AT&T finishes prepping EDGE for the expected influx of millions of iPhones.
Kewney continues, “Hints of the European launch emerged yesterday when Bill Condie of the London Evening Standard tipped Vodafone to be the official carrier, which will be confirmed Monday. But Voda is just part of the picture, with Apple going for a three-pronged European strategy with carriers – again, responding to disappointment in America with the exclusive deal with AT&T/Cingular.”
“Shipment date is still unknown, but ‘on course’ for the year-end date predicted last October by Apple CEO Steve Jobs” Kewney reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: European Guy Kewney is the wireless Editor of eWeek.com and columnist for IT Week and Personal Computer World.
I think its quite funny, all this hype, when no one in the real world has had a chance to use the Iphone yet.
The 3g issue is worth looking at for Europe, i use it and going back to a slightly enhanced version of 2.5g GPRS
is not the way forward.
The wi-fi is great but i don’t have time to look for a hotspot when i am in the sticks.
Maybe by the second generation iphone they will find a way of using a 3g chip.
@ Mr Reee
“People forget that all of Europe will fit neatly in the Northeast US, so 3 or 4 cell towers should cover it completely, no problem. Deploying 3, 4 or 5G is a snap compared to covering, say California or Texas or Alaska.”
This is not true: Wikipedia informs that both Europe and the United States have an area of about 10million square kilometers, and Europe has more than twice as many inhabitants.
In fact the United Kingdom alone is about the size of California but has about three times the population.
Add to this that the landmasses of Europe are more spread out than the United States and it becomes apparent that adding 3, 4 or 5G is by no means a “snap”.
RS is correct, and the reasons USA does not have a modern mobile phone system are not to do with Mr Reeee’s stupid ideas.
The story on the grapevine — in the City this week — is that Vodafone definately has the iPhone contract in UK which implies 3G version of the iPhone.
@Yet another Mac user
The term is “out in the styx”
There cannot be an exclusive carrier for Europe. Apple would get fined worse than microsoft for anti competition practices. That means iphone will have to work with all networks.
kris,
“Predicted last October? Can someone explain please!”
Right you are sir. This is yet another example of an error in this article. The iPhone was never heard of publicly until MWSF in January of 2007.
–mAc