There’s a theory favored by savvy Apple watchers that the first generation iPhone — greeted with such hoopla last year — was not actually the real thing.

That iPhone – the one that hundreds of thousands of Americans queued up to buy for up to $599 apiece, the one that Time magazine named the Invention of the Year, the one that six million people purchased before Apple finally stopped making them in May – was just a trial balloon floated by Steve Jobs to test the airwaves.

According to this theory, the real iPhone – the one aimed at the broadest possible market here and abroad — would start at $199, the magic price point at which consumer electronics devices seem to take off and become mass market phenomena. It would have built-in GPS location tracking, “push” e-mail, and wireless syncing with corporate enterprise networks. Most important, it would run hundreds of third-party applications available through an online App Store and operate over so-called third generation (3G) cellular networks that are two to five times faster than the one used by that first, prototype iPhone.

If this theory is true, then the real iPhone era begins on Friday, July 11, at 8:00 a.m.

That’s when the iPhone 3G goes on sale at Apple (AAPL) and AT&T (T) outlets in the United States and at the stores of Apple’s cellular partners in some 20 other countries around the world. (Strictly speaking, the era begins early Thursday, when the device goes on sale at 12:01 a.m. New Zealand time. Given how the Earth turns, that corresponds to 8:00 a.m. July 10 at Apple’s New York City flagship store and 5:01 a.m. at its Cupertino headquarters.)

Some things about the new iPhone haven’t changed. Physically, it’s almost identical to the first. Same touch screen, same dimensions — except for the back, which is slightly bulgier and made of black plastic instead of metal.

Conceptually, it’s still one device that combines three of today’s most popular technologies — cellular communications, portable digital music and wireless access to e-mail and the World Wide Web.

And the fundamental breakthrough is the same: unlike most devices that combine several functions and do none of them well, the iPhone puts together three must-have functions and does at least two of them better than they have ever been done before.

Early reviews suggest that the one thing the first iPhone was not particularly good at — telephony — is much improved in the second version, thanks to a redesigned audio system and, perhaps, improvements in AT&T’s network.

There’s still no physical keyboard, so devotees of RIM’s (RIMM) BlackBerry who were turned off by the lack of tactile feedback when dialing or texting on the first iPhone are not likely to be turned on by the second. The battery is still not user-replaceable, a shortcoming that may be even more important this time given the power demands of operating at 3G speeds. (One early reviewer who was getting nine hours of Internet use on the first iPhone clocked less than six hours on the second. See here.)

The built-in camera is the same under-2 megapixel device that can’t do video. There’s still no way to cut and paste text. And you are still married to AT&T’s cellular network for the life of a two-year contract, at least in the United States. In fact, the bonds of that matrimony may be even stronger this time around, given the way AT&T has set up the in-store activation procedure, and will cost U.S. customers at least $10 a month more.

There are many small improvements. You can search address books, delete e-mails en masse, set parental controls and save e-mailed photos. (These improvements will also be available to owners of the original iPhone as part of a free software upgrade.)

Investors will note that Apple has made major changes in its business model. Rather than testing the waters with a handful of exclusive contracts — first with AT&T, then with O2 (TEF) in England, T-Mobile (DT) in Germany and Orange (FTE) in France — Apple has gone global this time, with deals in six of the seven continents and more than 70 countries. To do this, however, it has had to largely abandon the arrangement — unique among cell phone manufacturers — by which carriers sold the iPhone for full price and kicked back a share of their monthly revenue to Apple, which was accounted for in monthly increments over the life of a cell phone contract (usually 24 months).

Steve Jobs was able to dictate these terms — quite advantageous to Apple — because the carriers recognized that being first to sell the iPhone would win them thousands of new customers. In most of the new markets Apple is entering this year, it is acting more like a conventional cellphone manufacturer, taking its (sizeable) profits upfront and letting the carriers subsidize the device with voice and data plans as costly as local market conditions will allow. (See Canada’s Rogers Communications (RCI), here for example, to see what kinds of problems this can lead to.) The price of the iPhone itself also varies widely, from as much as $888 for pre-paid phones in Italy to $75 in Mexico and free with certain data plans in the U.K.

Except for those costs, none of this affects the experience of the users.

For them, what will really distinguish this iPhone from the one that preceded it — and from every other smartphone out there — is the flood of software expected to be unleashed when the App Store opens on Friday. Apple has already demonstrated more than a dozen third-party programs for the iPhone, and over the next few months you can expect to hear about hundreds more: business apps that take advantage of the iPhones ability to “push” data down the network when it’s available (rather than when it’s requested); games that use the device’s accelerometer to navigate virtual space; shopping and social networking programs that use satellite tracking to tell you what shops or restaurants and which of your friends (or enemies) are near the spot where you are, right now.

In the end, every successful computing device is ultimately a software “platform,” a vehicle for the programs that give it its true value. This is where the real iPhone will stand out, and judging from the interest among the 4,000 third-party developers who have already signed up to write for it, it’s got a good headstart.

Even as Canada’s Rogers Communications and Germany’s T-Mobile compete to offer the worst voice and data plans for the iPhone 3G, Hutchison Global Communications on Monday unveiled what may be the best.

Hutchison (HTX), which stuck a deal with Apple (AAPL) in May to bring the iPhone to Hong Kong and Macau, will be offering customers a choice of two pricing plans:

• 8GB iPhone for HK$2,938 ($377) plus HK$188 per month ($24/month) for 500MB voice and data
• 8GB iPhone for free plus HK$498 per month ($64/month) for 2,200 minutes airtime and unlimited data.

“We believe the (minimum price) plan is comfortable enough for average data users,” a Hutchison spokesperson told the Dow Jones Newswire, adding that 500 megabytes will allow users to send 250,000 emails or browse Apple’s Web site 2,000 times. (link)

Bottom line in U.S. dollars: Including the cost of the phone, Hong Kong residents will pay between $955 and $1,532 over the life of a 24 month contract.

Some comparisons (all expressed in U.S. dollars for the equivalent of a 2-year contract):

• Hutchison in Hong Kong: $955 (500MB voice and data) to $1,532 (2,200 min., unlimited data)
• O2 (TEF) in the U.K.: $1,698 (75 minutes, unlimited data) to $3,588 (3000 min., unlimited data)
• AT&T (T) in the U.S.: $1,879 (450 min., unlimited data) to $3,318 (unlimited voice and data)
• T-Mobile (DT) in Germany: $1,366 (500MB data) to $3,374 (5GB data)
• Rogers (RCI) in Canada: $1,624 (150 min., 400 MB data) to $2,932 (800 min., 2GB data)

Well, that’s one way to clear your shelves of excess inventory.

Eight days after O2 and Carphone Warehouse, Apple’s U.K. distributors, tried to rid themselves of unsold iPhones by instituting a 100 pound (37%) price cut on the 8GB model, the extra phones have all but disappeared.

On Thursday, Carphone, Europe’s largest independent mobile phone retailer, alerted advertisers that the sale had done its work: the 8GB models were gone and would probably not be replaced. Pocket-lint, a British gadget site, posted a copy of the message:

“Thanks to the most phenomenal response to the promotion, The Carphone Warehouse is now out of stock on the Apple iPhone. Please can you remove all reference to the iPhone promotion in your copy. We apologise for the short notice but would like to thank everyone who participated in the campaign. Carphone do not expect to receive any additional stock at this time.” (link)

The news follows a week of intense activity at both Carphone and O2 stores. According to a report last week in Britain’s Mobile Today, sales at Carphone’s flagship store on London’s Oxford Street had doubled from 30 per day to 60 after the promotion was announced. “We usually sell one or two a day,” one staffer told the website, “but yesterday we sold about 20 – it was like launch day again.” (link)

8GB iPhones were also sold out last week at O2 stores in Newcastle, Birmingham and London, but O2, the British arm of Spain’s Telefónica, hopes to replenish its supply. The 16GB model is selling for full price and is still in stock.

The price cuts were part of a global effort to clear inventory of first-generation iPhones in advance of the so-called 3G iPhone, widely expected to be announced in June — perhaps as early as June 9, according to a CitiBank report issued on Thursday.

Although Apple (AAPL) has been having trouble meeting demand for iPhones in its U.S. stores, sales have been sluggish in Europe. The reaction to the O2 and Carphone promotion suggest that it was price, not lack of 3G connectivity, that was hampering sales — at least in the United Kingdom.

In France, where iPhones have not yet been marked down, it costs 399 euros to buy an 8GB model (VAT included), or $626. As Silicon Alley Insider points out, it’s cheaper to ask a friend to pick one up on vacation in the United States, where the same phone sells for for $399, and unlock it.

It’s not clear what’s going on in Germany, where T-Mobile slashed 8GB iPhone prices 75% to 99 euros ($155), but it still seems to have plenty in stock.

Hard on the heels of a 75% price cut in Germany and 100 pounds (37%) off in the U.K. comes a report out of Paris that two high-level executives at Orange, the iPhone’s wireless carrier in France, have flown to Cupertino to figure out what to do about the excess inventory piling up on their shelves.

Under a headline that reads “L’échec de l’iPhone pousse Orange et Apple à renégocier” (”The iPhone’s failure forces Orange and Apple to renegotiate”), Les Echos reports that Orange executive director Louis-Pierre Wenes and marketing director Alice Holzman met with Apple COO Tim Cook earlier this week to hammer out a deal that could lead to a French price cut in the next few weeks.

The sticking point in the negotiations, according to Les Echos: Apple wants Orange to subsidize the cost of the device, as it does all its other models; Orange wants Apple, in return, to sharply reduce or drop entirely the cut it demands of each sale.

The meeting was the latest attempt to sort out the trans-Atlantic inventory imbalance has developed in advance of the second-generation iPhone (or iPhones), now widely expected to arrive in June. While the first-generation continues to sell briskly in the U.S. and has been in short supply in Apple stores for several weeks, European sales are reported to have slowed significantly in advance of the so-called 3G model.

On Friday, the London Times quoted Kathryn Huberty, an Apple (AAPL) specialist at Morgan Stanley, saying that the European carriers had become over-excited by iPhone hype last June, ordered too many, and are now facing “significant” losses on unsold stock.

Apple sold 3.71 million iPhones in the U.S. last year. According to Strategic Analytics, its European partners sold 350,000 through December, considerably less than the 500,000 to 600,000 they had hoped to sell, and only 300,000 in the first quarter of 2008.

Why Apple can’t just re-balance its inventory by redirecting Europe’s unsold iPhones to Apple stores in the U.S. that could use them is a mystery that has even Apple analysts scratching their heads.

“It remains puzzling that iPhone availability has been very scarce in Apple’s US stores, yet seemingly plentiful everywhere else,” Stanford Bernstein’s Toni Sacconaghi wrote earlier this month. “One explanation might be that because iPhone’s supply shortage came at quarter’s end, Apple chose to ship most of its iPhones to the channel, where units would be recognized as sold during the quarter, rather than re-building inventory in its US stores.” (see here)

Is he right? Is Apple manipulating its shipments to dress up its Q2 report? We’ll likely find out on Wednesday, when Apple reports its quarterly earnings and releases numbers on its domestic and overseas iPhone sales.

Apple Inc. is not a company known for dramatic price cuts, even when it’s clearing inventory in advance of a new model.

So it was something of a shock to read on Friday morning that T-Mobile had slashed the price of the 8 GB iPhone from 399 euros ($625) to a surprisingly low 99 euros ($155).

There’s a catch, of course. Buyers at that price must commit to a two-year contract at 89 euros ($140) a month — something they may come to regret down the road.

T-Mobile is also offering a 29 euro ($45) per month package for buyers willing to pay 249 euros ($390) for the 8 GB phone. In other words, bargain hunters who want to save $235 on the purchase price of the iPhone may end up paying T-Mobile $2,280 more in monthly fees over the life of the contract.

The 16 GB iPhone still costs 499 euros and is available with a minimum 49 euro per month package. (link)

Apple’s (AAPL) European partners have been under pressure to lower iPhone prices to compete more effectively with RIM’s BlackBerry. They may also feel more pressure than Apple to unload their old iPhones before the new 3G models arrive; unlike U.S. Apple stores, which have been running out of inventory lately, the T-Mobile and the others seem to be overstocked.

“It remains puzzling that iPhone availability has been very scarce in Apple’s US stores, yet seemingly plentiful everywhere else,” writes Stanford Bernstein’s Toni Sacconaghi in a note to clients. “One explanation for this might be that because iPhone’s supply shortage came at quarter’s end, Apple chose to ship most of its iPhones to the channel, where units would be recognized as sold during the quarter, rather than re-building inventory in its US stores.”

“Apple is learning as it goes,” writes Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster, who says the kinks in Apple’s distribution models have been compounded by “weaker than expected” sales in Europe.

“It seems as if this has led to Apple trickling iPhones into its U.S. retails stores, while T-Mobile and other carrier partners seek to drain their stock of iPhones ahead of a new model,” he writes.

There’s still no word from Apple when that new model will arrive, but it’s worth noting that T-Mobile’s sale runs from April 7 to June 30 — the one-year anniversary of the day Apple began selling the original iPhone.

The iPhone continued its march across Europe today.

Three months after it landed in Britain, German and France, Apple’s (AAPL) mobile phone and computing device crossed into Austria and Ireland, where it will be carried by T-Mobile and O2, respectively.

It’s all part of Apple’s campaign to sell 10 million iPhones in 2008 by growing its international markets one region at a time.

The company now has its eyes on the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Lithuania, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland, according to a round-up of news reports assembled last week by Andy Space at 9-to-5 Mac. In Japan, Apple is reported to be talking to both DoCoMo and Softbank Mobile.

The biggest prize, of course, will be the emerging markets in the Far East. “We will one day enter China,” COO Tim Cook told Apple shareholders at the company’s annual meeting on March 4. “We’re not saying when, and we will one day enter India.” (link)

Cook has said that Apple is not wedded to any particular model as it chooses carriers in the countries it occupies. Nor, it seems, are its partners married to any particular user agreement. Neither the Irish nor the Austrians get free data plans, for example, and although O2 provides Visual Voicemail and free Wi-Fi in the U.K., that’s not something they’re offering in Ireland. (link)