Vodafone and three announce iPhone pricing as US court approves jailbreaking

The latest version of Apple’s much-hyped smartphone will hit Australian shelves on Monday, with tech research firm Ovumm predicting the iPhone 4 can shake off the bad news stemming from its antenna problems.

“Despite recent concerns over reception problems for the iPhone 4, consumer demand for Apple’s smartphone continues to build with each iteration of the device substantially outselling the previous version,” principal analyst Tony Cripps said this morning.

“Much of this success can be attributed to the halo effect Apple has achieved around its products through its extreme focus on usability, design and the tight integration between the devices, applications and services, if not always out and out innovation. This approach has also given the iPad a successful birth despite most observers previously doubting the viability of the tablet category.”

After Telstra and Optus rushed out their iPhone 4 pricing and plans yesterday morning, VHA brought forward the release of its plans and pricing by one day and joined the party.

Three’s pricing can be seen below:

And Vodafone’s pricing structure can be seen here:

As with the Telstra and Optus deals, generous data allowances are a feature of plans from both companies and both Vodafone and Three have attempted to sweeten their deal with “bonus” data offers of up to one gigabyte a month.

iPhone buyers will now have the unenviable task of trawling through the plans of all four companies to try and sort out the deals that suit them best, although several commentators are already pointing to Vodafone’s $49 deal, which includes 1.5 gigabytes of data, as one of the best available.

The other big iPhone news of the day came from the US, where the US Copyright Office has ruled that the practise of “jailbreaking” an iPhone so it can run software not officially approved by Apple, is no longer illegal.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which campaigned hard for the deal, says the decision will help foster innovation and says “locks” on smartphones were being used by companies to protect themeslevs from competition.

“The Copyright Office recognizes that the primary purpose of the locks on cell phones is to bind customers to their existing networks, rather than to protect copyrights,” said Jennifer Stisa Granick of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.