Now you can get hands on iPhone 4G 16GB version for free if you upgrade to 24 months Flext 60 contract for £60 per month (£30 after discount). Sounds expensive, but this is top tariff which gives you unlimited calls, you can select flexible booster and 1GB internet usage. iPhone will cost you £720 over 2 years, but you will get mobile service as well, so deal is not bad. The only downside is you are tied with this operator for 2 years.

If you have been waiting for Apple’s latest toy and on T-Mobile, call them now and see what options you have.

Phone has several improvements, most important ones being:

1. Faster Internet download speed

2. Cut, copy, paste (how long did it take to put these basic features in!)

3. Keyboard in landscape mode

4. Video recording

5. Improved search

6. Compass

7. Voice Control

8. Camera upgrade (3 mega pixels)

New iPhone will be available from Apple stores.

You can get full review of new features on Apple’s website.

iPhone proved to be very popular among UK punters, O2 sold over million iPhones.

Below is the table with new iPhone tariffs:

Apple prepares OS update for iPhone and iPod Touch in June, version 3.0. Update will bring long-awaited features like MMS support, copy-paste support and many others.

Source: O2 Press Release

This is the list of updates/improvements that Apple says is included in this update:

* Decrease in call set-up failures and dropped calls
* Significantly better battery life for most users
* Dramatically reduced time to backup to iTunes
* Improved email reliability, notably fetching email from POP and Exchange accounts
* Faster installation of 3rd party applications
* Fixed bugs causing hangs and crashes for users with lots of third party applications

* Improved performance in text messaging
* Faster loading and searching of contacts
* Improved accuracy of the 3G signal strength display
* Repeat alert up to two additional times for incoming text messages
* Option to wipe data after ten failed passcode attempts
* Genius playlist creation

There are important improvements in this release as you can see from this list like better battery life, fixes for bugs that crash iPhone and improvement on dropped calls.

For more information check Apple’s website.

You will be given O2 SIM which includes unlimited browsing and Wi-Fi for the first 12 months, which is pretty good deal if you are planning to use this device mainly for Internet video and music. Also it is automatically enrolled into O2 ‘Favorite Place’ tariff.  Below is the table of texts and minutes that you will get on this tariff.

If you think this tariff is not for you, then O2 promises that you are free to change to any other prepay offer tariff that O2 has.

After your first 12 months, you can continue to receive unlimited browsing and Wi-Fi if you topup at least £10 per month.

The Carphone Warehouse and Apple stores will be selling Pay As You Go iPhone at the same price as well.

If you have spare cash sitting in your bank and you don’t want to be tied to lengthy and expensive contract, this is the proposition for you!

New version packs impressive battery life, it is said that device will allow 5 hours of 3G browsing and 10 hours of GSM talk time! Video playback is expected to last 7 hours and audio 24 hours, that is very impressive battery life! Almost same design, same screen size , plastic back cover – white for 16GB version and black for 8GB version.

There is as expected integrated GPS module, HSDPA connectivity, improved audio quality and flush headphone jack.

Enterprise applications will be fully supported, Microsoft Office and iWorks, Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, calendar, searchable contacts and advanced web browsing with Safari browser. iPhone will be using built in Cisco Systems software for secure virtual private network (VPN) access.

Current iPhone did not create a serious rivalry to enterprise solutions like Blackberry, but new version will definately be capturing enterprise market share, according to Steve Jobs, 35 per cent of the Fortune 500, the biggest companies in the US tested new version of iPhone.

Price has been cut dramatically as well, first iPhone debuted in US at $599 and $699 (£300 and £350), and then fell to $399 (£200). This time 8GB version will cost only $199 (£100) and $299 (£150) for 16GB version.

In UK, O2 as an exclusive iPhone distributor will probably give new iPhone for free on most expensive tariffs. O2 website currently does not have any information about upcoming device, but has a banner asking customers to come back tomorrow for more information:

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You will be asked to activate your phone through iTunes, but if you are not intended to use it on O2 network, then you don’t need to do that. Just unlock your phone and use it on the network that you are on. There are plenty of resourses on the net on how to unlock your iPhone, check this site for example: http://iphone.unlock.no/

Following price slash on iPhone last week, I guess Carphone Warehouse doesn’t mind giving them away without contract, they need to get rid of them as many as possible before new version comes out this summer.

If you have bought this phone without contract, share your experience with us!

Promotion runs will 1st June, so if you were planning to get hold of this device, you can do it now. Carphone Warehouse sells it at £169 as well. 16GB version stays at the same price: £329.

This price cut follows iPhone price cut by T-Mobile Germany where you can get it now for 99 euros (approx. £79.7). Retailers are clearing their stock before 3G version comes out this summer.

In UK iPhone has been on sale for a while now, O2 UK has improved iPhone tariffs since the launch, which I have blogged about here.

Apple is now distributing iPhone SDK for developers to develop apps for iPhone and also trying to capture enterprise market with Microsoft Exchange and Cisco networking support.

As we can see existing customers on £35 per month now get 3 times more inclusive minutes and 2.5 times texts! Customers on £45 now get double of inclusive minutes, £55 tariff is now discontinued and all existing customers on this tariff will be moved to £45. There is 1 new tariff introduced: £75, which gives 3000 minutes and 500 texts inclusive.

O2 informs on their website that existing customers will be upgraded to new tariffs latest by mid March 2008. Customers do not need to do anything, O2 will send sms informing them about changes.

All tariffs come with unlimited (subject to O2 excessive usage policy, check here for details) data and Wi-Fi usage, visual voicemail and reduced roaming rates. Same as before, minimum contract length is 18 months.

If you are new customer, you still have to pay £269 for the handset. Considering that new customers have to pay so much for this ‘Jesus phone’, it is a good move by O2, their tariffs are now more competitive comparing to other mobile operators. In effect O2 is rewarding existing customers and makes iPhone tariffs more attractive to new ones.

What competitors offer for similar monthly payments? Let’s have a look at O2′s basic £35 tariff and compare it to other operators. T-Mobile’s Flext 35 + Web’n'Walk (18 months) gives you up to 900 minutes or 1800 texts and unlimited browsing for £37.5 per month. Vodafone for £35 per month on 18 months contract gives you 500 minutes and 500 texts. As you can see O2′s new iPhone tariffs are a big improvement. The only problem is that other operators give you range of mobile phones for free on these tariffs and some of them are as good as iPhone.

I would say that £269 for iPhone is pretty high and you are tied for next 18 months. O2 and Apple have to cut the price of iPhone like Apple did in US. I am sure many more customers will be joining O2 then.

What do you think?