O2 told me existing customers COULD buy from Apple Stores
When I complained to O2 about their crappy web service for ordering (multiple failures of the system to complete an order; same as a lot of other people) the customer services rep told me that I could buy one from an O2 store or, failing that, from an Apple store.
But they really didn't want to give me a PAC code so I could use carphonewarehouse to order one. It seems they have useless internal communications - no one seems to know wtf is going on over at O2.
No suprises there...