Articles in the european press suggest the deals with Deutsche Telecom’s T-mobile for German coverage, and there are rumors Vodafone in the UK will be announced soon, with the phones debuting in the late fall or early winter.
The Rheinische Post said T-mobile will be offering the handset in Germany on November 1st for about €450 ($613/£304). Reuters also has the story
The rumors about an iPhone announcement with Vodafone still continue to churn. Though it just seems to be a rehash of the old rumor that the european iPhone would be announced last Monday.
Random Inactivity points out some holes in the story, noting that Guy Keyney, the source of the original rumor now says that the deal with Vodafone was held up by unhappiness with the contract terms. If that wasn’t believable enough, he comes up with some other reasons, saying that Vodafone is waiting for their to be 1M iPhone activations (that’s activations, not sales), before making their announcement. They ask:
1. Why would Vodafone wait for 1 million activations before announcing?
2. Why when every iPhone announcement so far has been made by Apple, would it allow Vodafone to announce a European launch?
Personally, I think that Guy Kewney is making things up and inventing very specific details to seem credible. It reminds me of the religious crazies who keep predicting the end of the world, and always have a reason when it doesn’t happen.
In any case, it seems likely that these phones will be 3G, since neither carrier has extensive EDGE networks in Europe. This means that either Apple will have solved the problem with 3G chip power consumption, or Apple and the carriers have decided the decreaced battery life is acceptable. Either way, it suggests that their might be 3G capable iPhones available in the US by winter.
Via Reghardware