Wait. Why test? I thought the iPhone would just come in and take over. A sure thing never needs testing. Sounds as though Apple got their hands smacked and are not taking the European market for granted this time around. Smart move.

The registration works fine in Belgium. I have to say that the informations around the purchasing process are not realy clear. It took me a while trying to figure out where to get my SDK Registration Key, and finally received it by email a few hours later while the confirmation email was telling me to get it from the website. A bit confusing.

What about countries without iTunes store, like Iceland?
Do we get the 3G iPhone or are will still being screwed...

Does the 3G version of the iPhone still need FCC approval? If so, anyone heard from Apple that it has applied to the FCC to obtain said approval or will that be shortly before new iPhone release? How long does FCC take to approve? 2 - 3 weeks or several months?? Does Europe require similar governmental authorization? Is it quicker to obtain in Europe and that is why iPhone being "tested" in Germany and possibly elsewhere in Europe?

The month of June cannot come fast enough!

Rare that the prices of Apple's stuff (or anyone's for that matter) are so accurately translated to pounds sterling. I'm impressed. (For those outside the UK, sales tax is included in the quoted price except for business purchases. This is calculated at 17.5%)

Never see Apple sending it over seas first... Would be huge knock to there stock and rep...

This has been discussed a number of times on various Apple fan sites over the past month or two. As far as the FCC goes, there are third party companies that provide testing services to assist in FCC certification. These companies know all the details necessary for certification (I think they may actually license with the FCC but I forget), so a company can run through the certification process privately with these companies. Once Apple has verified the iPhone with one of these third party companies then they can submit all the testing results and other details to the FCC for certification. Since the testing has already been done the certification process takes less time. The FCC will also withhold public disclosure of the certification of new devices until the parent company requests, so it's possible the new iPhone has already been seen by the FCC and the FCC is just waiting on Apple before publicly announcing the results of the certification process.

No idea about European authorization but I'd be willing to be they offer similar secrecy. In this day and age most companies would want some level of secrecy when developing new products in order to have a leg up on potential competition.

It's not the SDK that's now international but the developer programme. I successfully downloaded the SDK right at the beginning (while in Holland and registered as such).

Europe does require a CE stamp. It's not quite the same as the FCC to my understanding, but the most similar thing.

An interesting thing about the CE stamp, if my old A-level technology is right, it says (or used to say) that electronic equipment must not interfere with other electronic equipment, and at the same time, be resistant to interference from other electronic equipment. My iPhone causes a lot of noise with my Kenwood radio when plugged in, so it should fail under both of those I would have thought.