iPhone owners short on loyalty to O2

Interviewed after Orange and Vodafone secured contracts with Apple last week, people who own the phone said it would be easy to take their loyalty away from O2.

They included a woman who was also an Orange customer for her other phone and a man with an O2 staff discount said he would move if he didn't have the discount.

Another woman said she would move if she could get it cheaper somewhere else. She said:  "I love the iPhone itself and not the company that's providing it within this country."

But despite Apple's lead in the desirability stakes, not everyone who doesn't have one is chomping at the bit to get hold of the touchscreen device.

A student and a retired man objected to the expense of getting one while two workers said that their BlackBerries were all they needed.

One man said: "I don't particularly like phones. So long as it's functional for me, it allows me to do what I want to do in terms of making calls, texts and emails, that's it, I've no other interest in them at all."