So I was visiting an O2 (NYSE: TEF) store today, and checking out what was new - at which point I figured I would check how the stock was moving for the iPhone 3GS. As many of you may remember, there have been various reports of it selling very well, and not so well - my personal experiences suggested not so well, but of course I’m happy to be corrected by the official sales stats, as and when they come out…..!

Anyhoo, the O2 shop I was in was sold out - they said they moved 250 over one weekend, and then the following monday received another 250, which they shifted within the course of a working week. On questioning about availability generally, they said all O2 stores were now sold out. Checking the O2 website I found the message below:

So that’s basically it - O2 (and I’d presume Carphone Warehouse too therefore) have shifted all of their iPhone 3GSs, and are waiting on a delivery. But really this doesn’t help too much on the rate of sales, because we don’t know the total amount of handsets that entered the country, or exactly the time over which they all sold. Hopefully when we get the sales stats, we’ll get some clarity - but for now if you want a 3GS, you are going to have to wait.

Android fans in Germany can finally grab Samsung’s first smartphone powered by Google (NSDQ: GOOG)’s mobile OS. It’s the i7500 aka Galaxy, which is offered by O2 (NYSE: TEF) for 69.99 EUR. Of course, a contract is required, but it’s still a good deal, considering you’ll get a device that prides itself with 5 megapixel camera, 8GB of internal storage, 3.2-inch AMOLED screen, GPS, WiFi, and so on… Check O2 Germany’s website for more details.

[Via: Engadget Mobile]

Much like secret squirrel on his various missions, tomorrow I plan to go and check out my local O2 (NYSE: TEF) and Carphone Warehouse stores, to try and get some feedback about what sold, and what didn’t, in respect of the iPhone 3GS. Sure, it will be a single representative sample, but at the same time, there’s nothing wrong with a flash poll to see what events occurred on ‘iPhone Friday’!

The cunning plan is to try and get some Staff to go on video for us, and explain how they found the first day (assuming they were working the Friday and Saturday!), what sold, what didn’t, etc etc. Rather than me typing things up as usual, video from the UK will be a nice - especially now we are HD-equipped!

So stay tuned tomorrow - once I’ve been out and about, and edited some video, I’ll get it up (so to speak) and linked in to the site!

If you have any (reasonable) questions, then ping me a comment in the next 12 hours, and I’ll ask those of the store staff too - keep ‘em clean y’all!

Ben

Hey y’all, hopefully you caught us for the live launch of the iPhone 3GS sales effort in the US? Our very own Will and Tom were there in person, recording all sorts of things from nipples to moonwalks - oh, and the occasional bit of Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) footage too!

Stefan, Daniel, Simon, and myself joined on the chatroom for some live interaction - and that’s the funniest Friday I’ve had in a long while!

But to get back on-point: what happened in the UK? Well, I’ll come to the reports I’ve heard/read about in another post, but let me offer you my own perspective first, because yours truly was out and about at O2 (NYSE: TEF) stores this very morning!

(FYI before we get all in the mix with the comments, I’m based in BERKSHIRE UK, so the places I mention are in that county - about 50 or so miles outside London)

So first I went to the O2 store in READING, where I found queues of about 30 people - apparently there was a brisk trade in Pre-pay devices, which I found fascinating - I certainly couldn’t bring myself to spend £440-530 on the device to get it outright! The queue was very orderly (as you would expect in the world’s leading nation at queueing!), and staff were offering coffee and muffins to people waiting! Nice touch. Estimating the queue to be about 1 hour, I figured I would pop on over to a nearby town, to check another store….

(Oh and in between the two stores I went to assist someone having a diabetic fit, but that’s another story…)

Onward to BRACKNELL, a much small place than READING, but with an O2 Store nonetheless. Whilst the queues had maintained a consistent 30 people at READING (apparently), BRACKNELL had started off at near-20 people, and then had dropped to between 3-5 people by the time I arrived (about 1000hrs). So in simple terms it was much less busy (although that didn’t stop them selling out of white-backed iPhones….). There wasn’t coffee and muffins on offer either, just water - boo.

Overall then, a brisk trade, but there wasn’t any insanity in terms of queue length, people completely losing it or fainting, or any moonwalking (sorry, that’s an in-joke, you’ll get it if you were on the live webcast this morning).

My feeling: not that busy. People are not easy swallowing the mega device/tariff cost - it ain’t cheap, that’s for sure! (Too) high pricing affects business…

More information is now available from O2 (NYSE: TEF) on the cost of upgrading to the iPhone 3GS if you are already in contract with them. Of all the feedback I’ve read/seen/heard on the 3GS, two things that seem to have peoples’ ire are the cost of tethering, and the fact you can’t get a free (or close to free) upgrade. I am going to tackle those points in a separate post, but for now I bring you what the costs of upgrading to the 3GS are if you are still in-contract on a pay-monthly tariff:

Existing Pay Monthly customers have the following options for upgrading to iPhone 3G S:

• Option 1 - wait until eligible for an upgrade.

All O2 Pay Monthly customers are part of O2 Priority List and those paying £35 or more a month, have the opportunity to upgrade early. Customers won’t have to see out the full term of their existing contract before being eligible for an upgrade.

• All customers continually spending over a minimum of £80.00 a month, receive a 6 month early upgrade
• All customers continually spending over a minimum of £50.00 a month, receive a 3 month early upgrade
• All customers continually spending a minimum of £35.00 a month, receive a 1 month early upgrade

Terms apply. For more information on O2 Priority List click here.

Existing iPhone customers will, however, enjoy iPhone OS 3.0 software which will be free to download to all iPhone customers from 17 June offering over 100 new features.

For iPhone 3G customers this includes the much anticipated MMS (from 19 June) and also internet tethering (using your iPhone as a modem - also available from 19 June). Find out more.

• Option 2 - purchase the iPhone 3G S on Pay & Go from 19 June. You can give your existing iPhone 3G to someone you know.

Pay Monthly customers can place their existing iPhone 3G sim card into the iPhone 3G S and receive all the latest functionality. Customers must continue to pay for their existing Pay Monthly tariff.

• Option 3 - pay the remainder of their monthly line rental in one payment and sign a new Pay Monthly contract.

So there you have it - basically you have to either be spending quite a bit monthly, you buy the device outright, or you buy yourself out of the contract! Simple!

Not much really - other than they are all in the same photo!

Despite the quite random title, in simple terms I am doing an O2 (NYSE: TEF) Joggler usage review - I’ve had the device just a few days, and am seeing how it is fitting in to my digital life, as it were.

The O2 Joggler, for those of you that don’t know, is O2’s stab at getting something together for the family, and shockingly enough, forms part of their O2 Family offering. It’s digital picture frame, calendar, music and video player, news renderer - oh, and clock!

Actually, the clock is one of the best parts, bizarrely enough - crystal clear, and a good size. But Mobile-wise, I am sure you’d be more interested in the convergence or tech-features it has on board.

The hardware is built on what is basically a netbook with a touchscreen - the device is much deeper than your average digital picture frame, and is toting a USB port on the side (that is basically how most of your media is going to get on there). It connects to ‘the’ network via WiFi, so you aren’t going to run up a massive cellular data bill. The touchscreen is a nice capacitance affair, and is responsive and well-presented, when considered with the UI.

The News feeds (general news and sports) are both driven from Sky, so there’s decent quality there - and a fairly decent selection too - updated on regular basis.

Overall, and so far, I’m liking the device - but I’ve had it just a couple of days - so wait for the more in-depth review once I’ve found out what the ‘killer app’ and foibles are for this cheeky little ‘family-centric’ device….

In the meanwhile you can go here to buy a Joggler for £149. Bargain.

Why not start off the week with some BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) OS update action? Today OS 4.5.0.163 has been released for the BlackBerry Curve 8310… and it’s an official release via O2 UK! That’s right, no forum findings or rapidshare .exe file downloads here, you can pick this one up direct from the O2 UK BlackBerry site. It’s been awhile since 8310 owners have had the opportunity to update their OS, so this will no doubt come as welcome news. You can pick up OS 4.5.0.163 for the BlackBerry 8310 from O2 (NYSE: TEF) UK right here.

As always, be sure to backup your device and take all necessary precautions before you proceed. After you install, do let us know of any noteworthy changes or updates in this build!

[Via: BerryReview]

I do love the eclectic emails I get from the guys at The O2 (NYSE: TEF) - most of the time there is an incredible mix of attractions, and this time it’s no different:

I don’t pretend to understand the teen sensation that is Miley, but the Ben Hur live experience sounds like it could be fun! And we all (in the UK) know the X Factor (again pop-tastic fun for all the family). O2 subscribers get all the benefits too with exclusive pre-sale tickets… links-time:

Miley

Ben Hur LIVE

X Factor

If you are in the UK and haven’t been yet - do check it out - the UK’s premier entertainment venue didn’t get it’s reputation for nothing! I recommend figuring out which event you want to see, and then building your day(s) there to include food, a film, a bit of shopping, and the event itself! A schweet day out!

What with all the hype and general excitement around the iPhone 3GS, I thought I’d take a look behind the iPhone tariff pricings, comparing a similar monthly spend across O2 (NYSE: TEF)’s three kinds of tariff (note - I compared these tariffs online, this does not represent what you may find in shops):

• Standard Pay Monthly
• Simplicity (SIM-only) Rolling Monthly
• iPhone 3G(S)

I decided I would pick on £30/month (£29.38 to be exact) as the figure to assess across the board (since each tariff option has a £30 option), and see what that bought me:

Standard Pay Monthly

• 18-month tariff
• 400 minutes
• 1000 texts (online only)
• unlimited o2 to o2 calls
• Nokia (NYSE: NOK) 5800 Tube (free)

Simplicity

• Rolling monthly contract
• 1200 minutes
• 2400 texts (online only)
• unlimited o2 to o2 calls (default bolt-on)

iPhone 3GS

• 18-month tariff
• 75 minutes
• 125 texts
• unlimited UK data (GPRS/3G) and WiFi access (via The Cloud)

I think those are the salient points, and it’s interesting to see how things stack up, isn’t it? I should be fair and say that if you were to go to the next tariff up with the iPhone, then you get  600 minutes and 500 texts per month - but the aim here was to compare what you get for your £29.38/month….

So what do we think?

You can find the tariff prices on the O2 site for Pay Monthly here, for Simplicity here, and for iPhone 3GS here.

OK, so now we’ve got the shakes out of our system with the main pricing for the iPhone, let’s take us a look at the ancillary pricing - by that, I mean the other things you are going to pay for - this inlcudes:

• Picture messaging
• Internet Tethering
• Travelling abroad

Right, let’s take these bad boys one by one:

Picture messaging (MMS)

As you might (or might not) expect, the costs are different between Pay Monthly and PAYG users - first of all, Pay Monthly:

You can use your text bundle to send picture messages in the UK and abroad. One picture message equals four normal texts, or if you’ve got no bundle texts left, they cost 24.47p a message (21.28p excluding VAT).

Picture messages cost 25p each, or you can buy a bundle with our Messaging Bolt Ons. For example, Messaging 50 gives you 50 texts for £3.99 a month, and a picture message uses three of those texts

Now, let’s say you fall somewhere between the 3GB and 10GB - well there’s an answer for that:

If you choose the 3GB Bolt On and need more data one month, you can upgrade to the 10GB Bolt On or buy an extra 1GB for £4.89, both include unlimited Wi-Fi. If you don’t use it all, the rest of the extra 1GB will disappear at the end of the month.

Your Internet Tethering Bolt On allowance only works in the UK. If you use your iPhone as a modem abroad, it’ll cost £2.94 a MB (£2.55 without VAT) in the EU and £6 a MB everywhere else.