Fruit salad
Mobile phone operator Orange has announced that its UK arm has reached an agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone 3G and 3GS to its customers by the end of this year, in a short press bulletin this morning.
There are no more details right now of the precise availability or tariff details, but the iPhone will be made available through all the usual Orange retail channels.
Of course, this move takes on double significance after the announcement, earlier this month, that Orange intends to merge its UK operations with those of rival T-Mobile, to create the biggest UK operator. Assuming O2 maintains its relationship with Apple, that will leave Vodafone and 3 as the only major UK suppliers not to offer the popular smartphone.
The move doesn't come as a huge surprise as it had been rumoured earlier this summer. Also, the fruity relationship between Apple and Orange got off to a good start last March when it was reported that Orange had started bundling MacBooks with some phone contracts.
UPDATE - 11:00 28 September 2009:
O2 has released a short statement apparently prompted by the Orange announcement.
"We're proud that we've been able to offer an exclusive iPhone deal to our 20 million customers for the last two years. We always knew that iPhone exclusivity was for a limited period of time, but our relationship with Apple continues and will be an ongoing success. We have over 1million iPhone customers and they remain very important to us.
"We aim to offer our customers the best devices on the market, including becoming the home of Smartphones and we are really pleased to now add another device in the Palm Pre. We also offer award-winning customer service and benefits, which is why more people choose O2 than any other network in the UK."