back to article O2 to axe iPhone prices?

O2 is poised to reduce prices on the iPhone 3G in the UK. It would seem. According to a report in Mobile Today, the online arm of the UK cellular-industry trade rag Mobile, the iPhone will be free on £35 and £45 per-month plans. Currently, the 16GB version is free on a £75 per month contract and the 8GB version is free on £75 …

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  1. Steve Button Silver badge
    Jobs Horns

    But will the new one be able to FWD an SMS ?

    That would be a nice feature, wouldn't it?

  2. Ben Hodson
    Unhappy

    There's a chance that .....

    It might even allow true turn-by-turn GPS navigation - or even cut and paste.

    I love everything about the iphone but these two issues simply rule it out for me as a phone.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Horns

    5mp camera with flash and I'm in

    so..with iphone 3.0 software finally delivering standard phone functions , all they

    need is to give the hardware the features that other phones at this level of the market

    have - a decent camera with flash. et voila - I'm in.

  4. Simon Buttress

    @ Steve Button

    I don't think it will, cut & paste neither.

    That simple functionality has (probably) been deemed of little use by Apple, if it ain't in by now it'll probably never be in.

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  6. jai

    re: There's a chance that .....

    >> but these two issues simply rule it out for me as a phone.

    you mean, they rule it out for you as a PDA

    phones are for talking to people and you can't really use turn-by-turn navigation while you're talking to someone. get a printout from googlemaps instead

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  8. Steve Button Silver badge
    Jobs Halo

    @Henry Helmet - Oh COME ON!

    I'm not going to jailbreak my phone to fix this relatively minor niggle. But is is a thorn in the side of my iPhone.

    Not as bad an not being able to use the thing as a satnav in my car though. I wouldn't mind if they insisted that it was attached to a charger while working as a GPS.

    And using it as a modem. I've had to splash out an extra £15 / month for an orange dongle when I've got a perfectly capable 3G bluetooth device. Grrrr.

    And I can't leave fring running in the background.

    Have never actually felt the need to copy/paste yet, but I guess this will be a niggle too.

    I don't care about the camera. It's crap. OK for snaps in daylight (if nothing is moving). I've got a perfectly good compact + a dSLR for that.

    Fix these things, stick a camera on the front for vid conf.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Hee hee!

    Windows Mobile 7 or Apple iPhone 3.0?

    Who says competition is bad?

    Perhaps it is merely a challenge to extract the best bits of goodness then proffer those to the public.

    Go guys go!

  10. Steve

    Feature Requirements

    Turn-by-turn Sat Nav

    Better Camera with propper "Xeon" flash

    Forward SMS

    Send video / propper MMS

    Cut & Paste

    Multiple apps running at the same time

    Got that then I'm in. Till then I still contest that it's a half baked phone and I'll stay with the Nokia N series.

  11. Philip Cunningham

    I want a zombie

    The iphone is a nice computer in a small box with a small screen. But what if they split the two - what if you could plug your iphone into a different screen and keyboard? Then you could have a 7inch nettop or a 10 inch laptop, both powered by your iphone.

    The connection wouldn't be wires as you have on a conventional computer. It would be a slot-in connection (proprietary, of course) that would envelop the phone - looking at it you've never know your phone was inside.

    Once you've made that leap, then the alternate form factors wouldn't stop at keyboards and screens but include power supplies, separate batteries and so on. You could have tablets (5 inch or 10 inch) or even change the display - an eInk display tablet with iTunes for reading matter would flatten Amazon's Kindle.

    Apple ipod already has a wide range of accessory partners, so there is a ready group of manufacturers. Apple gets to provide a market for clones, yet keeps control of the end user experience and charges the manufacturer for the privilege. By keeping them dumb (because they are nothing without the iphone brain), the new class of device aren't really clones but zombies.

    What's not to like?

  12. Shane Orahilly
    Stop

    @ Ben Hodson

    "It might even allow true turn-by-turn GPS navigation - or even cut and paste.

    I love everything about the iphone but these two issues simply rule it out for me as a phone."

    Just FYI, neither of those things make it a phone. They don't rule it out as a phone at all.

    I don't think it will be long before "The ability to communicate verbally with somebody a great distance away" is listed as a Feature, rather than a Purpose. >.<

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  16. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Can't see the point

    I'll wait until a version comes out for < £100 on Tesco PAYG. Mobiles will be the next bubble to burst ... you read it here first :)

    Mine's the one with the battered T610 in the pocket

  17. Tony
    Stop

    @Stephen Penna

    Well said - about time.

    I don't know what it is about phones & netbooks that bring out the fail brigade. All I ever notice about these people is that they fail to grasp the fact that sometimes the lowest common denominator isn't what the majority want.

    Yes these are still phones, but the feature-set that comes with that functionality is what people compare in order to choose the phone that is right for them.

  18. Andy B
    Coat

    Language drift

    Interesting to see 'axe' used to mean 'reduced' rather than 'got rid of entirely' - at first glance I thought O2 were handing out freebies.

  19. OFI

    Contract Price

    Great, now how about the price of the contracts drops a bit? For any sort of sensible plan it costs an arm and 3 toes.

  20. Scott Mckenzie

    Jailbreak

    Takes about 5 minutes and is incredibly straightforward, it gives lots of added functionality, allows updates to the OS software through iTunes (then re-Jailbreak). You can easily restore if there is a problem that requires returning the product.

    What's the issue?

  21. Martin
    Unhappy

    Jailbreaking an iPhone - why should I have to?

    "Takes about 5 minutes and is incredibly straightforward, it gives lots of added functionality, allows updates to the OS software through iTunes (then re-Jailbreak). You can easily restore if there is a problem that requires returning the product.

    What's the issue?"

    Apart from the dubious legality, and the fact that it's still a hassle?

    Well, there's the simple question of why the hell SHOULD I have to hack my phone to do standard things? Forwarding txt's is actually quite useful; and how ANY computer can not have cut'n'paste is beyond me.

  22. censored
    Thumb Down

    Jailbraking - no cons??

    Apart from it running like a dog, and the slightest tap on the icons causing them to wiggle like I was re-ordering them.

    I went back to factory settings.

  23. Fred
    Thumb Up

    32GB be nice

    I will get an iphone when they are 32GB or hopefully more in size.... 16GB just now is far too expensive for the size. Think im gonna end up buying one in europe somewhere, 500 euros is a bit steep for a glorified phone / media player / camera / spirit level oh and that awesome carlsberg pint thing...

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Axe Price !!!!

    ....do you mean 'slash price' or 'cut price' or 'reduce price' ?? ...axe in this context usually means to delete/remove/terminate... I thought your headline meant they wear going to make them free.....!!!!

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Alternatively?

    1 - get new iPhone when it appears (probably much discounted as I have a 3G iPhone already)

    2 - run with new iPhone as an extension to present contract

    3 - crack the old iPhone and either: set it up as a second line with O2 OR meddle about with it with another service provider.

    Reasoning?

    Well, it could be fun to dabble with the older 3G iPhone without compromising service stuff

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