First look at the European version of the iPhone

Sharp-eyed reader Victor Minton notes that British gadget site T3 (one of my perennial favorites) has photos of the version 1.1.2 iPhone being released in the UK and Germany on Friday (more words and pictures from last Sunday here). The T3 photos demonstrate a few notable differences from the US iPhone:

• A larger box and bronze instead of chrome metal accents (maybe). This probably is just bad white balance on the photos, but the metal trim surrounding the LCD screen appears to have a gold or bronze tint to them. T3 claims no Photoshop was involved. The bad white balance theory is supported by a photo at the end of the series where T3 shows a UK and US phone side-by-side and they look the same.


• Four languages. Like the iPod touch, but unable to live up to its polyglot versatility, iPhone 1.1.2 functions and menus can appear in English, French, German, and Italian.


• New keyboard layouts. German and French keyboards put characters like Y, Z, and Q in different places than they appear on American keyboards, resulting in AZERTY and QWERTZ layouts. iPhone virtual keyboards mimic their physical counterparts. Oh, and Euro symbols (and I presume Pound symbols) take the place of dollar signs too.


• O2 specific menus. Not only does O2 replace AT&T Services in the settings menu, but the UK iphone appears to gain a SIM Applications menu item too.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Internationalization, iPhone, O2