O2 Offers iPhone 4 Upgrade For UK Customers

O2 has announced a limited time upgrade offer for existing customers to get their hands on the new iPhone 4G.

Apple boss Steve Jobs launched the device yesterday at the company’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco. O2 has not revealed the details or pricing for the upgrade scheme but said more information will be available this week.

“Apple has once again raised the bar with the iPhone 4,” said Ronan Dunne, UK chief executive of O2. “With three years’ experience in selling the iPhone we are well placed to support the new device with the best overall experience, including making it easy for new and existing customers to get their hands one.”

Vodafone And Orange

Earlier versions of the iPhone were only available from O2 at first but other operators have subsequently been allowed to offer the device. Both Vodafone and Orange have announced that they will also be offering the iPhone 4 to customers but have not provided any details so far.

“Orange UK will launch iPhone 4 on June 24th. Further information on pre-registration, pricing and tariff plans will be revealed in due course,” the company states. While Vodafone is asking customers to register for updates when the handset is available on the network.

The iPhone 4 will launch on 24 June with the UK amongst the first five countries to receive the handset. O2 has launched a dedicated site to provide UK customers with more information on the Apple handset. However the company has put a block on the site so anyone traveling abroad will not be able to access it.

High street retailer Phones4u will be stocking the iPhone 4, and is letting customers pre-register for it on its site. “We anticipate that the imminent arrival of the hotly anticipated iPhone 4 will continue to drive strong sales and market share which will be compounded by the arrival of competing smartphones to the market from the other handset manufacturers,” said Phones 4u CEO, Tim Whiting.

Front-facing Camera

Jobs unveiled a series of new features in the iPhone 4 including a larger battery, a thinner body, a proprietary A4 processor under the hood, a front-facing camera for video conferencing, and a 5-megapixel camera paired with a rear illuminated sensor. The Apple boss called the new smartphone “the biggest leap since the original iPhone,”. “This is beyond doubt one of the most precise, beautiful things we’ve ever done,” he said.

Speaking at the D8 Conference earlier this month, Jobs said that the iPhone, despite being released in 2007, had its origins in a rough prototype for the iPad, device which reached the market in April. “I had this idea about having a glass display, a multi-touch display,” Jobs told The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg during the 1 June onstage session. “I asked our people about it. And six months later they came back with this amazing display. And I gave it to one of our really brilliant UI guys. He then got … scrolling working and some other things, and I thought, ‘My god, we can build a phone with this.’”

The phone’s final release follows months in which news and photos of prototypes leaked in California and in Vietnam.  The eventual product matched the leaked prototypes very closely.

Another addition to the new iPhone is Microsoft’s Bing search engine, alongside Google and Yahoo.