Articles tagged with: o2 network

Mobile broadband's been the hit of 2008 and now, finally, O2 customers will be able to get some of the action. With dongles from 3, Vodafone, T-Mobile and Orange all flying off the shelves, O2 has been conspicuous by its absence in the mobile broadband department but now it's given us details on its new service.

A bizarre message on the O2 website states "8GB and 16GB iPhone - iPhone no longer available". Cue a slew of rumours that O2 had cleared the decks for the 3G iPhone's imminent arrival.

Not so says O2. It's come out this afternoon saying that 16GB iPhones are only temporarily out of stock and that fresh supplies are on the, way while stock of the 8GB iPhone is "under review". It's also pointed out that there's still handsets available in O2 stores.

Still, there are plenty of other 3G iPhone news bits about. AT&T has apparently cancelled leave for its US retail staff from 15th June - pointing to an imminent US launch - while Apple itself has been posting adverts for "Field Validation Engineers" in Europe and Australia. High up on the skills requirements: 'experience with UMTS and 3G'...

We've already seen prices tumble in Germany and now it seems O2 is following suit with the UK iPhone. The trade magazine Mobile is reporting that the with-contract price of the 8GB version will be cut by a neat £100 to £169 tomorrow. The price cut is currently billed as being "for a limited time only",  running until 1st June.

Carphone Warehouse has confirmed the move, telling Stuff magazine that any customers who bought the 8GB iPhone at full price in the last month will be getting a £100 voucher as part of its "ultimate price promise".

Naturally the fire sale is prompting yet more rumours that a 3G iPhone is on the way, the suggestion being that O2, and T-Mobile in Germany, are clearing stock to make way for the new model.

Strangely, the price of the 16GB phone will apparently not change and now looks decidedly pricey at £329 with an 18 month contract.

HTC has to be the most prolific smartphone manufacturer on the face of the planet right now. After releasing the Touch, TyTN II, the Touch Dual and the S730 in recent months, you'd think that it would stop for a breather, but far from it. It's just added the Cruise to its ranks of top quality handsets, and O₂ is the first operator in the UK to take it up.

The result is the rather swanky-looking Xda Orbit 2. It's an extensively modified version of the stock HTC Cruise -- but in a good way. The ugly sharp, angular corners have been dumped in favour of a more rounded look, and the controls look a lot more elegant too.

The latest version of Apple’s 1.1.3 firmware for the iPhone has been hacked – and how. While previous versions of the ‘Jailbreak’ software required a Mac or PC and had owners jump through various hoops before they could install third-party applications on their iPhone, the latest release runs straight from the handset itself.

The catch is that you already need a jailbroken 1.1.1 or 1.1.2 iPhone before you can upgrade to 1.1.3 without losing access to third-party apps, so UK owners with a virgin handset will still need to go through the rigmarole of downgrading the firmware to 1.1.1 before they can run the Jailbreak application and finally upgrade to 1.1.3.