All change in the UK: Orange announces iPhone 3G/3GS agreement

Change has come to the UK mobile industry.

For a long, long time, if you wanted to buy an iPhone, you had to buy it through exclusive supplier, o2. End of story.

Whilst this made a certain amount of sense to the geeky few (“Well, obviously, they bent over the most for Apple, right?”), it has been a source of continual ire for your average normob (“normal mobile user”).

Not a week has gone by when I haven’t met a normob who’s talked about the iPhone and who’s stated that their *number one* reason for *not getting one* is because it’s on o2.

“Just swap networks,” I’ve prompted.

The response has invariably been something like:

– “No, I like [operator name] too much.”
– “No, that’s such a hassle.”
– “No, I’ve been with [operator name] for years and…”

The average normob has been highly, highly frustrated by the exclusivity agreement.

There is, therefore, a substantial amount of pent-up demand from an array normob segments. Indeed, some operator-owned research that I’ve seen has shown a rather staggering amount of 30-50-quid-a-month normobs ready and willing to splash out for the iPhone experience, just as soon as their operator offers it.

“There’s an app for that,” and the fancy iPhone television adverts (that, to my continual amazement, don’t *actually* advertise the iPhone any more — instead, focusing on the available apps) continue to do their job.

Too often has one of these target normobs had to sit in the pub whilst the joker-in-the-pack show-off (or, a mobile geek like you and I) has got out their iPint app and, after a sufficient amount of preening to build demand and bolster the ego, tipped it back to their mouth in a drinking motion, educating and enlightening the baying masses clutching their — let’s be honest — bollocks handsets.

Orange have announced that they will, in due course, bring the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS to their customers, later this year.

There is no information on pricing, tariffs and availability as yet.

But there is a pre-registration site for customers wanting to be amongst the first to own an official UK Orange iPhone.

(The Orange Group, of course, aren’t new to iPhone. This latest announcement takes them to a total of 28 countries in which they offer the iPhone!)

Head over here to register your interest: www.orange.co.uk/iPhone

Nice one Orange!