Orange France iPhone total hits 90,000

from a KOOLAID drinker (did I get that right?)

Roll on HSDPA, larger capacity and the reasons many people are holding back will be gone.

AJ No, I don't

AJ - I get that you want a cheaper iPhone. No doubt, in time, you will get one. You obviously know you could buy one right now and unlock it and use it on T-Mo or anyone else. It'll cost you £269 - cheaper than France or German, but more expensive than the US by about £40 (addng sales tax). It is what it is. I do think it's worth saying that you are getting a full iPod in that price too, which despite what Nokia et al would have you believe, outclasses some other mobile in every possible

But why do you then compare the plans to T-Mo's Flext? Flext 35 offers 900 minutes OR 1,800 texts and unlimited weekend minutes for £30. O2 offers 600 minutes AND 500 texts for £35 - and no free weekends, though you can buy that for £7.50. But it also offers UNLIMITED DATA. With an iPhone, THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT. Oh, you might say, but I can get "web 'n walk" for £37.50. Well a) that's for WAP which bears no comparison with full web browsing and email, and b), that's now more than £35. Add in those free weekends to the iPhone and the price premium is £5/mo. It's hardly a scandal, is it? And you get full web browsing, email, and visual voicemail. Maybe that's worth it to you, maybe it isn't.

Look, I don't for a second suggest the iPhone is cheap and I'm sure they'd sell more if it were (though whether they would make up the revenue in volume I have no idea - you have to assume they don't think they would). But we really have to kill this idea that it is some kind of rip-off. Demonstrably it's not the cheapest deal out there (though it's not the most expensive, either), but who cares? If you want cheap and tacky T-Mobile has lots of offers for you.

iPhone = 'cool' tax

I grudge that after paying for an iPhone you then are locked to one operator on a shitty tarrif. Then Apple slaps a tenner a month onto the tarrif just to be 'cool' enough to have an iPhone.

Shite.

Im insulted. I hope Jobs realises we are not stupid, we are not slave's to his designers and we will not pay silly money for it.

Mike Wharton

Demonstrate to me that the tariff is "sh1tty". For unlimitd web browsing, unlimited real email, and visual voicemail I think a small premium is fair enough. You don't. But what are you paying for your uber data-inclusive tariff that makes £35/mo. so wretched? TBH I'm obviously a fanboi and would pay whatever Steve asked me to pay but I keep seeing these comments about what a rip-off it is and I just don't see it. What I do see is people "forgetting" that the iPhone includes unlimited data, and that it offers something a bit better than a walled garden (or a walled garden with a non-obvious gate) of WAP or the "mobiel" internet. I've had a BlackBerry most recently and I know exactly what that means. But as sceptcial as I am, I'm genuinely interested, as I have compared T-Mo tariffs (see above) and BlackBerry O2 tariffs, and find I'm not getting a give away, but in no way am I being ripped off, either. You?

@Alex Johnson

Tmobile WnW on Flext 35 is what I have on my Nokia E65.

It is full fat internet, not WAP. It is excellent - I've always used the cheapest tariff on whatever network but when this deal runs out I'll be staying. It's also unlimited just like O2 i.e. within reason. I'm a moderate to heavy user and I still only use about 600Mb a month. 1Gb is when they start wondering if you've attached a laptop to it :)

Nokia's Web browser included on their S60 phones is excellent and I would say easier to actually use than Safari on my hipod touch. You can't read text without zooming in every time you change page.

As for email, I use POP to get at my hosted Gmail AFYD, and Emoze to push from work's exchange server.

Jobs because like the touch, he's all gimmick and no trouser.

iPhone...why

just a thought rather than worry about tarrifs (lot out there nad nearly all available with any handset) why not consider that it's probably not selling in the UK cos you have to buy it, speaking as the owner of a HTC touch with an 8GB card and I was given a free 32" TV too total cost-£35 for the 8gb card!

all the functionality of the iPhone without needing to use iTunes, and it's pocketPC so I can install software and has word, powerpoint and excel (and yes I do use them) and most importantly for an MP3 playing phone stereo Bluetooth so I can use my nice Sony headphones. now I could have gotten an iPhone and restricted myself and paid for the privilidge but I'm not a masochist!

oh and the Halo is ironic as I'm certain the only reason that anyone's shelled out the money is cos it's marginally less embarresing than paying someone to bend you over a barrel and pretend you're Paris Hilton!

The big picture

I think price plans aside my whole reasoning for not going with the iPhone is simply that of the media downloads. From videos to music Apple have been so stringent in recent times about their commission on these types of download that surely they will use the iPhone as a stepping stone to locking users into their over priced media services.

Very simple indeed for me - just like their home computer systems - their restrictions far outweigh any perceived benefits the OS may provide.

I'll wait for the next gen of phone which no doubt will be at least as good and less contractually based.