Does the UK iPhone Plan Add Up?

An anonymous reader writes "Is it just me or is the UK iPhone deal seriously more expensive than the US deal? If you look at what AT&T offers compared to what O2 offers, you get significantly less for your money in the UK than you do in the States. It's also significantly more expensive than other non-iPhone deals in the UK, which offer similar services. Steve Jobs response to the more expensive UK iPhone is that 'it's more expensive to do business in the UK', but what does that mean? As a UK resident I'm disappointed that we didn't get the same plan as the AT&T plan, particularly the free mobile-to-mobile calls. Is there some element of the UK iPhone service that I'm missing here?"

You're KIDDING.

[Jethro]

Apple pushing a product that's more expensive than competitors and expecting people to flock over and buy it just because of they style and hype surrounding it? Why that would NEVER work!

Mod parent up!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no idea if the parent is correct or not but I'm British, God damn it, and I demand the right to go red in the face and get outraged about being ripped off.

Re:You're KIDDING.

[Jethro]

Oh yeah, that's a REAL useful award!

More expensive to do business in the UK

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently, brits make many more dental claims.

Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're the douche who bought an iPhone.

Software

[Animaether]

There is, of course, the translations part.. translating Windows can't be cheap; though it surely can't be -that- expensive either.

Note that Adobe and Autodesk also have vast price increases up to well over 2x as expensive; not including the 17.5% / 19% VAT that gets added on top. With the sucking U.S. dollar, that's only getting worse and worse. It'll be interesting to see if Adobe / Autodesk / etc. will adjust their non-U.S. pricing to adjust for this, as currently it is much cheaper to import from the U.S. -and- risk any import duty fees.

Re:Incoming calls are free in the UK

[nsayer]

comparing pricing between a U.S. carrier and a European carrier is like comparing apple [apple.com]s to orange [orange.co.uk]s.

Yeah, they're different, alright.

Re:You're KIDDING.

[Jethro]

Gee I'm just CRUSHED.

Re:Incoming calls are free in the UK

[smallfries]

Few European wireless carriers offer flat-rate data plans, although their pay-per-kilobyte prices are typically far cheaper than U.S. pay-per-KB prices

Well apart from Verizon of course. I heard they had a deal for 0.002 cent/MB which seems amazingly cheap. And you get fantastic customer support to back it up...

Re:UK APLE FANBOIS?

[Shuntros]

Are UK Apple fanbois as annoying as American Apple fanbois?

Yes.