O2 told to "prepare" for Apple announcement on 9 June iPhone launch anyone?

4 June 2008 9:27 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Industry sources have told Pocket-lint that O2 has been told to "prepare" for a major announcement on the 9 June, the same day Apple CEO Steve Jobs is to hold his keynote at the start of the Worldwide Developer Conference.

The news adds further fuel to the rumour fire that Apple will be launching a 3G iPhone next week.

If correct, and we believe it to be, the next question would be when we are likely to see the new handset hit the UK.

Industry experts are still undecided as to whether Apple will move to rush out the handset in July to compete with the HTC Diamond and BlackBerry Bold, or force UK customers to wait until November as it did with the original handset. We will keep you posted...

Comments

Who cares? I have an iPhone I imported back in August, it's only on Edge but for the little I actually use it for surfing that is plenty. If I'm doing any serious net work I use a proper computer. Email and texting works perfectly well and 3G has no bearing on the phones music and video playback. I won't be downloading any movies from iTunes overpriced store, why should I when I can just transfer them from DVD via my home computer? So as I say, "Who cares"? Posted by andy faulkner, England
According to another website O2 are going to be very busy in the first week of July. Providing that Apple allow the phone to be subsidised I'll definiately be getting one, the high price is what has held me back from getting the original! Posted by Steve Gosling, England
I have to say I agree with Andy Faulkner (top post)
My iphone is perfect email works great anywhere !
The iphone connects to my wireless internet in the house this is useful when I want a quick surf of the internet whilst the ad breaks are on. Posted by Paul, England
The only reason Apple announced the iPhone in January and launched it in June in the US was because the governing body that handles telephone use in the US needed to be given details of the forthcoming handset in January. Doing so would have made it common knowledge so Apple had to announce first in order to retain the upper hand.

It didn't arrive in the UK until November because it took that long to get the kinks out of the US release and prepare O2 for their own release.

There's a very simple reason why all subsequent announcements of iPhone updates will be followed by an almost immediate global release - the Osborne Effect. Google it!

Basically, no customer will buy a last-gen product after a company reveals their plans to release a better one, so the release will have to be very prompt. Posted by owen-b, United Kingdom