Ready for Kiwi networks a month early
Well, here’s a surprise. Like the US, iPhones in the UK have been locked to their respective carriers until now. As of late last night with the pre-ordering system for the countries in the first wave going live, the UK online Apple Store is now offering the iPhone 4 unlocked (or ‘SIM-free’ as they call it in the UK). Head past the ‘read now’ for the details.
Pricing is £499 (NZ$1061) for the 16GB model and £599 (NZ$1273) for the 32GB. This means that if you have family or friends in the UK (and so many of us do), an unlocked iPhone 4 could be yours within two weeks. The only downsides are of course the postage and any duty should customs choose to slap you with it, plus the risk of having no warranty.
Unfortunately for some, though, it does look like the lack of white option at launch extends beyond just AT&T as you’ll note in the screenshot that it’s unavailable for pre-order in the UK as well.
So how does this news grab you? Let us know whether you plan on obtaining one from the UK in the comments.
@ Paul: Hi Paul
Thanks for that, I actually found the same thing after trawling through 300 odd pages on Mac rumors
Now the big question is, can my mate find a store on Thursday their time that still has stock? He flies out of London Saturday their time, so without a reservation, I fear time and stock issues may be against me
(muttys has made 9 comments)
@ muttys: I'd say that is cutting it very fine indeed. If he is prepared to queue on launch day you may get lucky. Having been in the UK for the 3GS launch there were huge queues but nothing like the US where people have apparently started queueing already……Good luck!
(Paul has made 323 comments)
commsdelta wrote:
Is this just your opinion or something official – if official links please.
(Omad has made 65 comments)
@ Omad: This is just commsdelta’s opinion, nothing official with regards to delays for NZ (or any other country) has been announced by Apple. To be honest, I’d be surprised if there were delays. When the iPad was delayed Apple announced it very early on but it’s almost July now and nothing has been said. Plus there are other companies involved (the mobile carriers) who would be adversely affected if Apple were to pull the plug on them now. Furthermore, if Vodafone have ordered say 100,000 units I would imagine that stock would be ring-fenced for them. I don’t see that Apple could say to them “Sorry, you can’t have that stock now because we need to give it to AT&T”. The iPad was different as there were no re-sellers involved.
@ Steve:
Looks like your right Steve, still on time based on apples latest announcement.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/06/28iphone.html
Cheers.
(Omad has made 65 comments)