iPhone Available in Europe on November 9

Engadget is covering the Apple event in London today where Steve Jobs just announced the iPhone will be available in the UK on November 9. The price of the 8GB iPhone will be £269 including VAT. Apple also announced that O2 will be the iPhone's carrier in the UK, who will be offering unlimited data plans over EDGE starting at £35 for an 18-month contract. That's right folks, no 3G.

During the Q&A session, Steve Jobs explained the lack of 3G  capability by saying that, "The 3G chipsets are real power hogs. Handset battery life cuts power to 2-3 hours. Our phone has a talk time of 8 hours, and that's really important when you want to use your phone for Internet and music. 3G needs to get back up to 5+ hours, something we think well see later next year. ... WiFi is way faster than any 3G network. Energy efficient EDGE with better, faster WiFi. That's why we chose it."

Apparently, 7,000 hotspots will also be available to iPhone users through Cloud, a Wi-Fi provider. It's not clear if these hotspots were set up to support the iTunes WiFi Music Store, since Steve wasn't very clear about a Starbucks deal in Europe.  Anyway, that's the gist of the Apple event in London. If you live in the UK, you can sign up for more iPhone updates over at Apple UK.