Orange just announced it’ll start selling the iPhone in Austria, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and Africa, but there’s more to this announcement than meets the eye.
For a start, Orange’s announcement is astoundingly short. It’s just one sentence long, and for a deal that’s sure to be a big money spinner for the network, that sounds alarms in our heads.
Secondly, the company states that it won’t sell Apple’s handset until later this year, signalling that it’ll be the 3G version, and lastly, since it’s also selling the iPhone in Switzerland, it means Apple’s moving away from operator exclusivity.
Of course, Vodafone’s already snapped up the iPhone in several markets, so we’ve known for a while that Apple’s keen to get out of it’s single-operator tie ups, but this underlines it.
However, with no sign of O2 severing its Apple connection any time soon, it could be a while before Brits can choose another operator for their iPhones.
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Orange
