“I’m just dropping you a note to keep you up to speed with what’s happening. As you may have seen from their press conference, Apple have caved under the pressure and decided to follow the lead of companies such as Mobile Fun in offering free cases to fix the “death grip” problem. This is a brilliant result and something we should really have seen from them much earlier! As such, and since we’ve given away almost five thousand free cases, we think it’s time for us to bow out and let them take the lead.” Mark Riley Head of Marketing

You are probably aware that Apple latest and greatest creation, the iPhone 4, hasn’t had the smooth start in life that past iPhones had. With the late arrival of the white phones, yellow marks on the screen, and reception issues this version of the iPhone needs a few solutions to the problems. Regarding the reception issue due to the design of the new iPhone the outer steel band acts as the phones antennas and when the joins are not covered the signal is supposed to be the strongest yet! However cover the two connections with your hand and the signal quickly drops leading to dropped calls or an unreliable quality in calls. There have been a few solutions to this such as “Hold it another way” but this can be pretty annoying considering the best way of holding the phone causes the problems. Well another is to use a case…

Apple are selling “Bumper” cases which are reported to solve the problem as will any iPhone 4 Case that prevents you from joining the antenna together. The Apple bumper cases retails at £25 and considering you have problem just shelled out a fortune for your new iPhone you don’t want to be spending a fortune just to fix your signal issues!

Free iPhone 4 Case

Well our good friends at Mobile Fun are giving away a free iPhone 4 case which will completely solve your signal issues and protect your iPhone 4 from scratches aswell for free! The case is worth £7.50 and if you follow this link you can see exactly how to get yours! Your free to have a look for at other iPhone 4 Cases aswell Mobile Fun stock loads so you can get your free one by following that link and perhaps get another if your like me and want different looks now and again but you don’t have to you can just get the free case if you wish!

iPhone Launches Today

Today is the big day that the iPhone 4 officially Launches in many countries across the world. Some lucky people have already had their iPhones since yesterday and so far we have heard good things. There has been a lot of hype around the iPhone, there always is, so now the day has come will it start to die down? Narh I didn’t think so either! One thing that many people will probably have noticed is the lack of White iPhones. It seems Apple are having problems getting these and they are expected around mid July.

Apple has released this statement regarding the lack of white iPhones.

“White models of Apple’s new iPhone 4 have proven more challenging to manufacture than expected, and as a result they will not be available until the second half of July. The availability of the more popular iPhone 4 black models is not affected.”

That’s all the information Apple is releasing. It could be having problems with the White Case yellowing or cracking. Many people just can’t wait until mid July, and therefore are settling with the Black version. I personally have the White 3GS as I had a Black 3G and wanted a change but this time, if I was to get one, I would go Black again I think.

iPhone 4 - Only Black at the Moment

That moves me on to my next bit of information, which I cant believe I am going to say, but I have decided, this hurts, not to get the iPhone 4! I know, why? Well, there are a few reasons, firstly my contract for the 3GS has just come to an end so I no longer have to pay the £35 a month which, being a student, was a hard thing to keep up with so I don’t really want another £35 a month contract. I therefore looked at pay and go but considering the Phone isnt out on Pay and go at this time, and it will be £500 for what is basically a better screen, a bit faster, and a front camera I wont use oh and a back one that takes 720p when I take all video with my 1080p camcorder, I cant really justify the price for what I would gain. Not only this I have already bought an iPad less than a month ago which I am loving and use far more than my iPhone!

So that’s my reasons for me not getting one, if money wasn’t an issue, like I was in a well paid Job and not stuck at uni then I would of got it definitely! So now roll on 2011 and iPhone 5 which I will definitely get! By then there should be many new features and it will be a nice huge jump from the 3GS!

For those of you who are getting the iPhone 4 though it seems in the UK Tesco, you know, the every little helps people, have the iPhone 4 available on Contract and Pay and Go for the Cheapest, this will be added to the iPhone 4 Pricing Post soon, (been busy lately).

iPhone 4 UK Pricing

Ok so you are probably thinking, iPhone 4? What’s all this? Cloud Bite hasn’t mentioned nothing about it! Ok ok, so you no doubt have heard about the iPhone 4 from other sources and the reason there was no big Post about WWDC and the announcement of the iPhone 4 over the past couple of days is completely due to a fail on my behalf. For those who don’t know I use WordPress and you can schedule a time for a post to appear online. As I tend to write my posts at 2am I like to release a post later in the day preferable around 8am-9am so I set up a schedule to do this but not concentrating and some how picked November? It’s a problem with writing at 2am half asleep! Anyway so sorry about that post not appearing but lets get on with pricing!

So slowly the Pricing is being revealed for the iPhone 4 in the UK. Please note all prices are correct at time of writing but may change and this is for the UK only for other countries contact your network providers!

Once more prices are in there will be a full breakdown here so keep checking back!

UPDATE: 23/06/2010: Tesco has Announced their pricing and this is so far the cheapest. Check their Pricing HERE. This Blog Post Will get updated as soon as possible sorry for any inconvenience.

Apple

iPhone 4 Sim Free (unlocked any network)
Black/White 32GB – £599
Black/White 16GB – £499

O2

Current Customers – If your a current customer and on a Pay Monthly tariff you can take advantage of the Early Upgrade offer. This is only available until 24th July 2010! You will have to pay a get out payment and this varies depending how many months you have left on your contract and you will have sign up to a new 18 or 24 month contract! See below for contract info as there have been several changes! Use this link to find out how much an early upgrade will cost you!

New Customers – If your a new customer and want to get the iPhone 4 you can choose 1 of 3 routes Including Pay and Go, Pay Monthly, P&G with Simplicity check below for further information on this!

Pay Monthly / Simplicity Tariff - I want to keep this simple so you can pick either 18 month contract or 24 month the 24 month contracts are £5 cheaper each month than the 18 month contract.

I have highlighted the Prices in the following way:

• Simplicity (NO PHONE) 12 Month – GREEN
• Simplicity (NO PHONE) 30 Days – BLUE
• Pay Monthly with Phone 18 Month – ORANGE
• Pay Monthly with Phone 24 Month – RED

All tarrifs come with Unlimited Texts, Unlimited Wifi, Visual Voicemail, Picture Messages now cost 20p and are NOT part of your text allowance (sneaky O2),

Update: 17th June 2010 – O2 have now released information on the handset prices for Pay Monthly Only:

• N/A / N/A / £25 /£30 – 100 min, 500 MB Data / 16GB – £209 £279 / 32GB – £299 £323
• £15 / £20 / £30 / £35 – 300 min 500MB Data / 16GB - £179 / 32GB - £279
• £20 / £25 /£35 / £40 – 600 min 500MB Data / 16GB - £119 / 32GB - £209
• £25 / £30 /£40 / £45 - 900 min 750MB Data / 16GB - £89 / 32GB - £179
• £30 / £35 /£45 / £50 – 1200 min 750MB Data / 16GB - £29 / 32GB - £129
• £45 / £50 /£60 / £65 – Unlimited Min 1GB Data / 16GB - £Free / 32GB - £29

So there are the Prices. Only the £30 a month has a different Price for the 18 Month Contract than the 24 Month contract. Also the Prices are correct (confirmed via O2) on a 24 month Contract you pay more for the Phone. Why? Not a clue seems backwards to me!

Also Remember after 9 months you can reduce your contract to the tariff lower than you first pick.

Pay and Go – With Pay and Go there is no contract however you must buy the Phone in full and then top up.

Cost of Phone – As of yet O2 are to announce this price. Check back soon!

Tariff – What you get is based on how much you top up each month:

Picture messages will cost 25p each or you can get a bolt on. Also there are no call costs with this so make sure you see the cost of calls here (scroll towards the bottom of the page)

• Top up £10-£14. Get 300 texts and 500MB internet
• Top up £15-£29. Get 500 texts and 500MB internet
• Top up £30 or more. Get unlimited texts and 500MB internet

Orange

Orange have now announced their pricing  and in true Orange style it’s not simple. Orange love to have more tariffs than you can imagine but I have tried to break this down as easy as possible! 1 Pro for Orange is they are the first to announce the actual phone prices with their plans which is good!

Current / New Customers

I cannot find any mention of different deals for current and new customers for the new iPhone on Orange so if you are already a customer I would give them a call (Number at the top of your bill usually)

Pay Monthly / Pay as you Go

Ok now as Orange have made this so complicated and have so many tariffs I think the best thing to do is link you striaght off the their page where it shows the tariffs in great detail but before you check them check the below information first!

For Pay Monthly Customers Orange claim all tariffs come  Unlimited Web Browsing and Wifi* << that little star actually means – Separate Fair Usage policies of 750MB / month apply to both BT Openzone WiFi and Mobile Internet Browsing. What I gather from this is you can have 750mb Mobile Web Usage and 750mb Wifi Usage, why they don’t just say this and be straight with the customer is beyond me.

For Pay as you Go Customers mobile Browsing is limited to 250mb and Unlimited Wifi for 12 months. Now it doesnt say the unlimited Wifi is actually 750mb for pay and go customers but it is likely to be this way!

Here is the link to check out the plans.

Three

Three have announced they will have the iPhone 4 but as of time of writing there are no prices announced.

Tesco

UPDATE: 23/06/2010: Tesco has Announced their pricing and this is so far the cheapest.

Vodafone

Vodafone have announced they will have the iPhone 4 but as of time of writing there are no prices announced.

This Article will be constantly updated when more information arrives.