I reckon that come end of June Apple will start selling iPhones unlocked... something they should have done from the beginning.

... a flurry of comments insisting that "the iPhone is rubbish so why would anyone care that it's selling well" and "what is it with The Register publishing articles on such a rubbish device" etc etc

...there is no supporting evidence for one, but I hope it's true. I'd be the happiest boy in the world with a 32Gb 3G iPhone, and if it had GPS my nipples would explode with delight....

The iPhone is rubbish so why would anyone care that it's selling well. What is it with The Register publishing articles on such a rubbish device?

"come June the current 16GB iPhone will drop to £169, iPhone2 (3G, maybe GPS), is released in 16 & 32 GB varieties for £269 and £329 respectively.

Mobile OS X 2.0 contains an improved security model, better battery performance, some improvements to existing bundled apps, a couple of games and a handful of bugs, oh and the App store."

Mind you my crystal ball has 'Mad in Britain' stamped on it so it may not be entirely accurate.

i wonder if o2 is running out cos of all those pesky o2 employees buying them for £100 each (staff discount but only 2 allowed per employee mind), unlocking them and putting 'em on ebay.....

ah yes, there they are...

You've never sampled the delights of fanboy baiting?

well, never one not to stand back and ignore the bait!

so many suckers in so little time!?

are we to imagine the that O2/CPW have hit their sales quotas and cleared they soon to be reduntant backlog of phones ahead of a relaunch or the iphone torch being passed toanother!?

as for Rosco and his, it sold out their for it must be good...

In the UK "The S*n" newspaper is the top telling newspaper - but its %%%% and lacking in any substance beyond the gutter......

ITV is the most popular network (as watched by readers of 'the S*n') its full of derivative drivel of soaps, reality TV and gameshows.....

still, as my old Systems Development manager use dto say...

a quality product is not a product that is 100% functional and Operationally Robust, but one that meets the requirement & contraints defiend..... (still he was a $%£$%£$% though!)

in which case the iphone is "quality" as it meets the objectives of providing a high revenue earning stream for apple! - Job done....

the fact some people do not like the restrictive contracts, hi running costs and techincal and DRM constraints should go any buy onther phone (something that the elitist iphone owner would prefer)

go and take your "s*n" reading pennies and buy a Alca*tel phone or sum*vision mp3 player... while they relish their decadnet iphones whilst dressed in pointless and expsensive designer gear (with subtle labelling as not to be to gauche) glad that until june they are safe from the chavs doing a rerun of the great Razor plague....

How about quoting the real price of an iPhone in your articles? Who in their right mind shells out £35 a month for a mobile phone contract? That's more than my landline, mobile, broadband and TV put together costs me. I don't mind that the iPhone's expensive, since it's a bloody nice piece of kit. But so it should be at £800 a pop.

Theres no need; the unlocking market is carrying Apple anyway.

Do you honestly think these purchases are for PERSONAL use? Hell no, they're going to flood eBay and undercut the previous sellers.

@Jerome, I suspect a rather large percentage of buyers of the £169 device are well aware of the myriad of options to unlock the device and use their existing SIMS. I was nearly tempted myself but the camera on my existing phone is much better and I like to take the odd decent snap. I was only recently made aware that you can buy the phone in CPW or O2 without having to sign up for any of the ridiculous 18 month contracts.

iPhone justification in three easy steps:

1) Purchase 8Gb iPhone for £169

2) Unlock it at home, without signing up to a contract - the contract isn't signed in the store when you pick it up.

3) Even if you don't care about the phone bits, appreciate that an 8Gb iPod Touch is £199 at the Apple Store.

Fed up of "waah waah much more expensive than an N95" bullshit.

Let's look at it closely:

Trade cost of N95 8Gb vs iPhone 8Gb: £327 vs £212*. iPhone wins.

Initial cost of handset to punter: Free vs £169 - so you have to have £169 available to spend (debit, cash or credit card) but after this...

Free N95 only available on a £35/m x 18m contract which is COMPULSORY. Delivery of the handset is dependent on credit check accept and DD being set up - iPhone can be bought for cash and then not connected. Unlocking is trivial at home, £20 on the street so lets be fair and say £20.

TCO (for a functioning phone) is therefore (£0 + £35 x 18) for the N95 and (£169 + £20) for the iPhone, which can then be used on a PayGo SIM or a SIM from an existing contract = £630 vs £189.

N95 not looking so good now, is it?

*£212 is accurate, hence Anonymous Coward :)

Um...I do. The £35 a month contract is by no means exceptional. And is pretty standard for a contract which includes anytime, any network minutes. Claiming that the full price of the contract is entirely for the handset is rather disingenuous. For the record, I do not own an iPhone.

Does anyone know of anywhere in central London that still has these in stock?

Everywhere within half a mile of Oxford Circus has sold out...

I was amused to hear one CPW manager in a London store openly advising customers to get them unlocked, and a till jockey saying "there's the information on the contract - but you probably won't want that anyway".

Has anyone else observed this sort of thing ?

Call me a sheep, but I bought one on Wednesday from an o2 shop. No signature, just pay the money and walk out with an iphone. Within 5 minutes it was unlocked, activated and jailbroken using the ziphone.org software.

The firmware version was 1.1.2. They've been shipping 1.1.4 for quite a while now, suggesting that someone ordered a bloody massive stockpile for the imminent sales success on launch day... which failed to arrive.

(If you do unlock and go for ziphone, upgrade to 1.1.4 before unlocking etc)

As a phone, media player, photo viewer, etc, it's great. Very happy!

Oh and, "...there is no supporting evidence for one, but I hope it's true." posted above. Well, there is supporting evidence... There's references to a 3G chipset found in the latest beta SDK (or firmware - can't remember which one)

sure another one's on the way, however the 8GB is great value for money providing you don't take o2's contract offer...

whilst the N95 is feature rich, i bet your not going to use them all!!!

it is however available on 12 month contracts in th uk - 2 minutes on the internet shows ts is the case with at least 2 of the big high street names and for less than £35

i guess the market moves to fast for some folks prejudices?

maybe i'll just keep the crappy phone i have and rather than posing in trendy hang outs of graphic designers and media types, take my 300 notes and get myself a flight to paris, rome or amsterdam and experience life instead!?

"TCO (for a functioning phone) is therefore (£0 + £35 x 18) for the N95 and (£169 + £20) for the iPhone"

Except the "analysis" is biased, as you're unlocking the iBone vs. the N95 with contract. If the punter actually wants to do contract, the iPhone's more expensive. I think thats the point that has caused poor sales for the iPhone over there, people being used to get a "free mobile" with their contract.

trouble with unlocking and other phones is that they don't give you unlimited edge/GPRS when you are mobile- however slow these services are they are still very useful.

I was paying orange £4 per month for very slow 4mb 3g on my old phone. Now I have very usable unlimited mobile connection and I use many times the 4mb limit every day without spending a penny extra.

If you are thinking you are getting a bargain on another network for your iPhone you are just missing out on some of the best features of your machine.

Walked into local CPW this morning, and picked up an 8G iPhone for £169 - and the store apparently had more.

I love the way everyone on here knows so much about every other persons mobile phone usage habits.... to be able to boldly claim that no-one would need/use a £35 a month contract shows amazing insight, congratulations!

For instance, i don't have a landline, thus saving me £11 a month from BT but means that a slightly larger number of bundled minutes on my mobile is necessary..... and for the record, i do not believe that the deal offered by O2 for the iPhone is expensive in the slightest. I'm on Orange though so can't take advantage of their tariff.

I asked at the Apple store on Regent Street why they had not followed suit with regards to the price drop on the phone and they assured me that anyone buying the phone from I Apple Store would receive a £100 credit off their O2 phone bill.

So everyone is happy.