it also does seem that you can swap iphones mid contract (when they pull out the 2nd generation iPhone), which is a concern for me given the samsung drives and the fact that my conversation with apple hinted at the fact that they might have a new generation using these types of drive last next year..

porting numbers should be fine.. you get the normal ‘temporary’ O2 number from the included SIM, get your number ported to the new contract with O2 and use your existing number..

SMS seems to be an issue through.. no bulk SMS (same SMS to two or three of your friends) and bizarrely, no SMS forwarding!?!?!?! something I think must be addressed in a future firmware update!!! no ??!?

Very impressed. The sales guy tried to do a pitch on me by telling me about the device, but unfortunately the one he picked up to show me appeared to be frozen, while the one I had in my hand was working fine. He claimed it is the fastest Internet on any mobile device (!). I asked him about network coverage, saying I knew that O2 had rolled out EDGE especially for the iPhone… he dodged the question and said that it would automatically connect to a wireless network if I didn’t have coverage somewhere (hmmm - partly true assuming you are near a Cloud access point, and it won’t work on an 802.1x certificate wireless AFAIK). I asked if the weather widget could show local weather, he didn’t know, so I quickly configured it to show weather in Farnborough without his assistance. Sigh.

Interesting about the contract. I think that will make it harder to sell to my wife, since she is currently making a lot of use of the long weekend option. Interestingly the guy also said that if you are in contract with O2 already it “might” be possible to port the number but he wasn’t sure.

As a side note I think I overheard the guy say that they had sold 5 or 6 iPhones on Saturday.

Basically I’d probably still get one despite the network limitations… but not yet. And O2 (and presumably CPW) need to educate their staff on the device a little better.