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Orange has launched its iPhone in the UK, breaking the monopoly of O2, and already the two operators are taunting one another with special incentives to customers. Vodafone will also carry the Apple phone, but not until the new year - but is going further than its rivals in trying to shift the balance of power with the influential vendor, significantly by trying to get its own-label 360 services into the App Store.

The carrier, along with China Mobile, is the one that has clashed most aggressively with Apple over the balance of operator versus vendor branding, and this was said to be one reason why Vodafone did not sign up for an international exclusive for the original iPhone in 2007. Now it aims to offer its new 360 mobile portal/store/user experience on the iPhone, even though this would conflict with the strictly Apple-only software environment of the handset, with its carefully policed App Store and vendor-defined look and feel.

Vodafone's internet services marketing director Bobby Rao told TechRadar that it would submit elements of 360 to the Apple store and planned to run the platform on branded smartphones such as Android handsets, not just on its own-brand, midrange phones (the first 360 cellphones run the LiMo operating system). Whether to accept applications like 360 Maps and People will be a key challenge for Apple - rejecting them would offend a key channel to market, at a time when it is seeking greater volume for the iPhone, and could even attract antitrust attention as with its Google Voice dispute; accepting them would be a significant step along the way to dual-branding and a greater influence for the operator over the user's mobile web experience. With a similar compromise likely to get the iPhone onto China Mobile's network in future, Apple's days of complete control of its platform may be numbered.

For now, though, demand for its handset is unabated. So much for the promises of 'no iPhone price war in the UK' - as Orange launched,O2 hit back with two lures for cash-strapped consumers, a reduced price tethering option and a free fixed broadband line for its existing iPhone customers, plus 90-day free trials for premium sports TV channels.

These moves follow estimates that, when Orange put the phone on sale on Tuesday, it shifted 30,000 units in one day, very respectable in a country where the 3GS has already been available, with some attractive deals, for four months. O2 was hitting back with its special offers, and Matthew Key, CEO of its parent Telefonica Europe, admitted that the loss of sole rights in the UK would hit growth. He criticized Orange's data cap of 750Mb per month on the handset (even when it is connecting via Wi-Fi) and said: "We don't think customers should need to understand, or worry about, what a gigabyte or a megabyte is."

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