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.

News and rumors about the iPhone’s global expansion keep rolling in.

Citing a source at Swisscom, Lausanne-based Le Matin Online reported on Thursday that Apple had concluded an agreement to bring the 3G iPhone to Switzerland this summer (link, in French). Swisscom, with 5.1 million subscribers, is the country’s largest mobile carrier.

Meanwhile, France Telecom CFO Gervais Pellissier said on Wednesday that his company was in talks with Apple (AAPL) to extend their partnership beyond France and into “more than just two countries.” He was responding to a journalist’s question about whether the company was hoping to secure rights to sell the iPhone in Spain and Poland, the largest countries in Europe still without an iPhone carrier. (link)

Also on Wednesday, America Movil (AMX) confirmed that it had signed a deal to bring the iPhone to 16 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. America Movil, based in Mexico City and controlled by billionaire Carlos Slim, has 159.2 million subscribers. (see here)

Earlier this week, Vodafone (VOD) announced that it had signed an agreement to carry the iPhone in 10 countries, Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey. The same day, Telecom Italia announced that it had also secured the rights to sell the phone in Italy, leading to speculation that Apple had abandoned its original iPhone business model and was no longer demanding revenue sharing in return for exclusivity. (see here)

But France Telecom’s Pellissier said that his company was sticking to the terms of its original agreement, which gives it the exclusive right to sell the iPhone in France for another two and a half years. France Telecom is resisting pressure to lower the price of the original iPhone — as O2 and T-Mobile did in the U.K. and Germany, respectively — at least until the 3G iPhone arrives. “We’ll see with the next model,” said Pellissier, according to Macworld, adding that the arrival of a new iPhone “will boost sales.” Pellissier declined to give exact sales figures, but said his company had sold more than 100,000 since November, 2007.

According to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, exclusivity agreements may soon be the exception, not the rule. He notes that the Vodafone announcement, unlike press releases issued by the first wave of carriers, “did not reference any exclusive terms.” He expects Apple will start to feel the impact of the loss of revenue sharing from these nonexclusive deals in 2009, but still views them as a net positive for the company.

“While we expected an international rollout in CY08 (with the exception of China), this announcement is both sooner and more expansive that we were expecting. … The iPhone’s international rollout is about 6 months ahead of our original expectations.”

On Tuesday, April 29, Rogers Wireless, Canada’s largest cellular carrier, announced that it too had signed a deal to carry the iPhone “later this year.” (link)

Meanwhile, stocks of first-generation iPhones are running low. Spot shortages continue in the U.S., and Engadget reports that O2 on Thursday posted a notice on its website that iPhones — both the 8G and 16G models — are no longer available in its stores. The 8G model was on sale in the U.K., but the 16G model sold at full price until the shelves ran dry.

[Thanks to reader David C. in Switzerland for the tip.]

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.

End-of-year sales figures for Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone in Europe are trickling in, but not in any form that can be definitively pieced together.

That latest news comes from Germany, where the head of Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile division said in an online interview Saturday that it had signed on 70,000 customers in the 11 weeks since the device went on sale. (link)

What’s not clear is whether that number represents iPhone sales or iPhone activations — an important distinction in T-Mobile’s case because for 2 of those 11 weeks it was required by court order to sell unlocked iPhones. Despite the stiff 999 euro ($1,460) price tag it set for unlocked iPhones, the company reported at the time that “many sold.” Assuming those buyers activated their iPhones with other carriers, they cannot be counted as T-Mobile customers.

France Telecom’s Orange division, meanwhile, reported in early January that it sold 70,000 iPhones in just four weeks. But Orange did say how many iPhones it had activated — sure to be less than 70,000 because Orange was required by French law to sell unlocked iPhones during the entire period.

O2, the exclusive carrier of the iPhone in the U.K., hasn’t issued any sales figures yet, but the Financial Times, citing unnamed “people familiar with the situation,” claims sales in the first 8 weeks came in at 190,000. (link)

Four weeks, 8 weeks, 11 weeks. Activated, sold. Locked, unlocked. There’s no logical way to sort those number out.

But that hasn’t stopped U.S. analysts. When trying last week to unravel the discrepancy between Apple’s iPhone sales (3.7 million in 2007) and AT&T’s activations (less than 2 million), Bernstein’s Toni Sacconaghi and Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster both seem to have toted up those numbers, added a fudge factor, and come up with 350,000. (See The case of the missing iPhones.)

Is 350,000 good or bad? It’s hard to tell. O2 said it was “happy” with its sales figures, although they seem to have come in below O2’s initial target of 200,000 units. Similarly, France Telecom said its 70,000 sales were well within its target range of 50,000 to 100,000, although as Wired points out, CEO Didier Lombard told Europe 1 radio he hoped to sell 100,000 iPhones before the end of the year, not 50,000 to 100,000. (link)

Deutsche Telekom, perhaps wisely, doesn’t seem to have issued any public sales target. What Philipp Humm, head of T-Mobile Germany, did say in that online interview yesterday, according to Reuters, is that “the iPhone is by far the most sold multimedia device in T-Mobile’s portfolio.”

That I believe.

The British and the Germans queued up dutifully for their Apple (AAPL) iPhones, but when the devices finally arrived in Paris last week, the French went nuts.

On day one, France Telecom’s Orange division sold 12,000 iPhones, according to Metro International, easily beating T-Mobile’s first-day sales in Germany, a country with one third more people (82 million vs. 61 million) and 50 percent more Internet users (52 million vs. 34 million) (stats). After just 21 hours, 17 percent of Orange France stores had sold out, according to O’Grady’s Powerpage.

And today, France Telecom announced that it sold nearly 30,000 iPhones in the first five days, 48 percent of them to new customers (link). That’s nearly one iPhone for every 2,000 Frenchmen (and women). In the United States, Apple and AT&T sold 270,000 iPhones in that first frenzied weekend last June, or one for every 1,111 Americans.

Yesterday, a German court overturned the temporary injunction that had forced T-Mobile to offer its customers the option of buying iPhones unlocked. France is once again the only country where users can buy the phones without a contract that ties them to a particular carrier, although France Telecom reports that only 2 out of 10 French buyers paid the 100 euro ($147) fee to have their iPhones unlocked. (See Paris: City of unlocked iPhones.)

Below the fold: iPhone frenzy, Parisian style, courtesy of YouTube.

Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone goes on sale in France late tonight at select Orange boutiques at prices that look very different from those charged in the U.S. ($399), the U.K. (289 pounds) or Germany (399 euros locked, 999 euros unlocked).

France Telecom, which owns Orange, knew even before it signed its exclusive deal with Apple that it was going to be required to offer customers the option of buying the iPhone with or without a contract. Agence France Press (link, in French) reports that Orange has structured its prices accordingly.

• 749 euros ($1,109) unlocked iPhone, no contract
• 649 euros ($956) locked iPhone, no contract
• 549 euros ($809) unlocked iPhone, with Orange contract
• 399 euros ($588) locked iPhone, with Orange contract
• 100 euros ($147) to unlock a locked iPhone

After six months, Orange will unlock an iPhone for free.
T-Mobile, which had already signed its exclusive deal with Apple when it learned that it would be required to offer German customers the contract-free option, is charging a 600 euro premium for unlocked iPhones. Yesterday a competitor, Debitel, offered a 600 euro rebate to people who bought unlocked iPhones from T-Mobile but agreed to sign a contract with Debitel instead (see The $890 iPhone Rebate).

Official sales of the iPhone in France begin tomorrow, Nov. 29.

Apple (AAPL) and T-Mobile may have thought they could choke off the sale of unlocked iPhones in Germany by pricing them high enough — and 999 euros ($1,485 at today’s exchange rate) is certainly pretty steep for a cell phone that ordinarily sells for 399 euros in Europe and $399 in the U.S.

But they probably didn’t figure on the competition using that 600 euro ($890) price differential as a crowbar to pry open the German iPhone market.

Debitel, a network operator that buys airtime from T-Mobile and other German carriers and resells it — announced today that it is offering a 600 euro rebate to any customer who buys an iPhone from T-Mobile and agrees to use it instead on Debitel’s cellular network.

T-Mobile had signed a deal with Apple to be the iPhone’s exclusive carrier in Germany, but was ordered by a Hamburg court last week to offer customers the option of buying unlocked iPhones without a T-Mobile contract (see here). Debitel has apparently calculated that it’s worth 600 euros each to lock customers into 2-year agreements.

France Telecom’s Orange division is also planning to charge a premium on unlocked iPhones when the devices go on sale in France later this week, but one that’s “substantially lower” than 600 euros. (See Paris: The city of unlocked iPhones.)

UPDATE: France Telecom today set its prices for iPhones locked and unlocked. See France’s $956 iPhone.

Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone goes on sale in France Wednesday night for 399 euros ($593) with a 2-year contract, and although we don’t know yet how much France Telecom plans to charge for an iPhone without a contract, we do know that it will be less than 999 euros ($1,485 at today’s exchange rates).

That’s how much T-Mobile is charging in Germany for unlocked iPhones, having been forced by court order to offer the devices both with and without a contract (see here).

France Telecom’s Orange division is also required to sell the iPhone in both configurations, but in an interview today with Europe 1 radio, Orange chief Didier Lombard said he planned to sell unlocked iPhones at a price “significantly lower” than 999 euros. Lombard also said he expected to sell “a little under 100,000 iPhones” before the end of the year.

Unlocked iPhones have been available on the gray market in Europe ever since September, when the first free unlock programs became available. You can pick them up in some French supermarkets for 999 euros. Look for those prices to come down, starting now.

One of the questions left unanswered when Apple (AAPL) finally sealed the deal with Orange to market the iPhone in France — where it’s illegal to sell a phone that’s locked to a particular carrier — was how much customers who wanted to buy the device without a contract would have to pay.

Now we know, thanks to a court in Hamburg, Germany: a premium of 600 euros, or $880, which brings the total price of an unlocked iPhone to 999 euros or $1,478 (including 17.5% V.A.T.). iPhones sold with a two-year T-Mobile contract will cost 399 euros (about $590).

T-Mobile, Apple’s German partner, had been served on Monday with an injunction temporarily blocking it from selling locked iPhones. Deutsche Telekom, which owns T-Mobile, is appealing the court order, but said this morning that it will comply — and it announced its new price points.

Orange has not yet announced prices and rates for France, where the iPhone goes on sale on Nov. 29, but will presumably follow T-Mobile’s lead.

French law prohibits tying the purchase of one product to the purchase of another — a cellphone to a particular carrier’s service plan, for example — which was one of the sticking points that delayed Orange’s deal with Apple. According to today’s New York Times, several European countries have similar laws on the books, including Belgium, Italy and Finland.

Germany’s laws are less clear, but it was on the strength of the rules on the books that Vodafone on Monday won a temporary injunction.

The $880 premium is high, but not totally unexpected. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has estimated that Apple gets $18 a month from AT&T, or $432 over the life of a two-year contract — revenue Apple would have to give up if it were forced to sell unlocked iPhones in the United States.

T-Mobile and Orange also lose the monthly fees they were expecting when they negotiated what they thought were going to be exclusive contracts with Apple.

$880 minus $432 equals $448. Sounds like they basically split the difference.