"We can’t wait for our customers to get their hands on the iPhone this Friday night," Ron Johnson, Apple’s senior vice president of Retail, said in a press announcement. "Every Apple retail store will offer support for iPhone at the legendary Genius Bar, and beginning Saturday morning you can learn how to get the most out of your new iPhone by attending a free workshop or scheduling a personal training session through our popular One-to-One program."

iPhone users in the UK will be able to activate their new iPhones using iTunes software running on a Mac or PC. iTunes guides the user through steps to choose their tariff and activate their iPhone. Once it's activated, users can then sync all of their phone numbers and other contact information, calendars, email accounts, web browser bookmarks, music, photos, podcasts and TV shows just like they do when they sync their iPods with iTunes.

"O2 stores are fully geared up for what will be the year’s biggest product launch," says Mark Stansfeld, O2’s sales director. "We’ve hired and trained hundreds of new iPhone specialists who will be in all 450 O2 stores giving live demos and showing customers how to get the most out of their iPhone."

iPhone will be sold exclusively in the UK through Apple, O2 and Carphone Warehouse’s retail and online stores for £269 (including VAT) with 8GB of storage. All Apple, O2 and Carphone Warehouse retail locations will allow customers to purchase up to two iPhones per person on a first come, first serve basis. The iPhone requires a new 18-month contract with O2.

Three iPhone tariffs will be available from O2 starting at £35, which all include free unlimited usage of the O2 mobile data network and free unlimited use of The Cloud, the UK’s largest single public Wi-Fi network, covering over 7,500 cafes, restaurants, airport lounges, pubs and other locations across the UK. O2’s iPhone data tariff will be truly unlimited with no fair usage cap, says Stansfeld.

iPhone activation will require an Internet connection; an iTunes Store account or a major credit card; the latest version of [url=http://www.itunes.com]iTunes [/url] and a Mac or PC with a USB 2.0 port and one of the following operating systems: Mac OS X v10.4.10 or later; Windows XP Home or Professional with Service Pack 2 or later; or Windows Vista Home Premium, Business, Enterprise or Ultimate Edition.