Carriers demand Euro-iPhone changes; Vodafone hotly tipped

Another day, another page in the ongoing Euro-iPhone saga.  The latest is that, once again, Vodafone is back in the running to win at least part of the contract, with sources telling Unstrung that not only is a deal due to be announced shortly, but that carriers have been demanding far more concessions on Apple's part than AT&T were able to secure.  

Top of the list, apparently, is a requirement for Microsoft Exchange support - a common cry from enterprise and consumers alike - and which particularly centres on calendar synchronisation.  Similarly enterprise-themed, carriers also want the iPhone's inbuilt security to play more nicely with business firewalls:

"The Cisco PIX firewall is one of the most popular in the world, and this oversight is causing people huge headaches"

YouTube support on the handset has also come in for some criticism, with carriers requesting that the search functionality be extended to allow for multi-word queries and for the whole app to operate more in line with the traditional web version. 

While the full list of requirements has not been revealed, it is also said to include the introduction of cut & paste, and changes to the way the iPhone manages WiFi security:

"Apple requires a '$' to be placed in front of WEP and WPA security keys for any access point that is not an Apple Airport" (i.e, most of the market). This isn't in the manual and isn't easy for the average user to understand anyway. "[Vodafone] wants Apple to rewrite the code to make it 'just work like any normal human would expect"

Among the cream of the demands, however, is the old 3G chestnut, with analyst Carmi Levy piling on the high-speed pressure:

"Vodafone has been leading the chorus of European carriers for Apple to bring a 3G-capable iPhone to market as soon as it possibly can ... The carrier that lands the leading device -- iPhone -- on the fastest, most capable 3G infrastructure will score major market brownie points if AT&T’s experience in the U.S. is anything to go by" Carmi Levy, AR Communications Inc.

It is, perhaps, a sign of the European market's greater maturity that carriers are able to force Apple into making such changes prior to a deal being signed.  From a UK perspective, there have been several reviews of the iPhone by British publications that have failed to be swept up in the Apple joy - it looks as though cellphone-addicted Europeans are harder to please than their American cousins.