Apple’s ‘revolutionary’ iPhone will be available in the UK on November 9, 2007 via service provider O2. It will cost ₤269. The question is, are you set to finger tap your way to the newest way of making phone calls? A new report says the new phone could potentially transform the wireless industry, and also evaluates the the exclusive relationship between Apple and AT&T.

The iPhone is a cool new gizmo; Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs said it was the ‘best iPod’ the company’s made. Features include a touch screen, iPod, local WiFi, and camera. You can watch TV shows and movies on the 3.5 inch widescreen. iPhone even has special quicklinks to YouTube, and Google search. And yes, it has the most advanced web browser ever on a portable device! But you can check all of this out on Apple’s website.

Much talk has centred around why the iPhone has been offered over a slow data network, AT&T’s Edge (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution), with critics carping about the first lot of iPhones lacking 3G. Edge typically operates at between 75 and 135 Kbps. Steve Jobs has however been consistently defending the decision. Jobs told The Wall Street Journal, “Edge is good enough, but you wish it was a little faster and that’s where sandwiching Edge with Wi-Fi really makes sense because Wi-Fi is much faster than any 3G network.”

Analysts have gone to town saying Apple could open the device to a whole range of content creators and application developers. For instance, when iPhone first hit the streets in the U. S in late June, Hugh Hefner has unveiled ‘iPlayboy’, a “collection of multimedia features” designed for the phone. John Thomas, editor of Playboy.com, told VNUNET, “With so much buzz surrounding the all-in-one Apple iPhone, we knew we had to develop something specifically designed just for this device.”

The iPhone is already available in the US, having been launched there on June 29, 2007. The more expensive version that’ll soon be available to UK consumers is also going to be a different version. Jobs has also announced that the new gizmo from the Apple stable will see Europe roll outs in Q4, 2007. Asia will have to wait just a little longer - launches are scheduled for 2008. The question is whether the Asian market is going to end up with the coolest deal: is it going to be case of he who gets last, gets best?