O2 and Apple to make “joint announcement”

Further fueling already rampant speculation about the release of an iPhone capable of operating on 3G networks, Telefonica O2’s chief executive officer Matthew Key stated that his firm and Apple will be making a joint announcement in the “coming weeks.” The statement came during a conference call following O2’s quarterly fiscal results announcement.

Representing perhaps the best evidence to date of a pending 3G iPhone release, a screenshot of the current pre-release iPhone OS 2.0 build shows a setting for turning 3G capabilities on or off. The setting is accompanied by the text “Using 3G loads data faster, but decreases battery life.”

Additionally, Apple has withdrawn the current-model iPhone from its online store. The store currently displays the message “Currently Unavailable” for both the 8GB and 16GB iPhone models.

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