Germans to get iPhones

BERLIN — Deutsche Telekom AG’s T-Mobile will be the exclusive carrier for Apple Inc.’s iPhone in Germany, where the gadget will go on sale Nov. 9.

The iPhone, a combined cell phone-iPod media player that also can wirelessly access the Internet, will cost 399 euros ($553), including Germany’s 19 percent value-added tax, said Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Hamid Akhavan, head of the T-Mobile International division.

The announcement came a day after Apple said the iPhone would go on sale in Britain on Nov. 9 with service from mobile operator O2. It debuted in the United States on June 29, with service exclusively through AT&T Inc.

The 8-gigabyte phone will be available only in T-Mobile’s 700 shops in Germany and through T-Mobile’s Internet shop, with a new two-year contract. Monthly pricing was to be announced later.

As in Britain and the United States, the phone will not operate on Europe’s fastest cellular data networks. But when it’s within range of a Wi-Fi hotspot, it automatically connects to the faster technology.

Jobs said the power demands of chips for the faster, third-generation cell networks would have cut phone talk time in half.

“The iPhone has eight hours of talk time, and that’s a lot, and we’d like at least five hours of talk time with 3G so people can take advantage of the iPod, take advantage of the Internet functions and actually use them and not have to worry about missing their important phone calls,” Jobs said.

“The chip sets are improving and I’m hoping that by the end of next year we can deliver on that, but right now, no one has figured it out,” he said.

Beyond Britain and Germany, rumors have circulated for months that Spain’s Telefonica SA — the parent of O2 — and France’s Orange likely would offer the device in Spain and France.

Apple announced last week that it had sold 1 million iPhones in the United States in the first 74 days it was on sale, shortly after also slashing the price by a third.