Apple is partnering with Orange. That exclusive, and potentially flavorful, partnership for the iPhone launch in France was announced Thursday by Orange Chief Executive Didier Lombard, according to a Reuters news report.

A spokesperson for the company has confirmed to the news service that Lombard announced the deal-signing at an industry event in Hanoi. No formal announcement has yet been posted on the Web sites of Apple, Orange, or Orange’s parent company, France Telecom. A formal announcement is expected at the Apple Expo in Paris on Monday.

Orange Joins T-Mobile, O2

Earlier that week, Apple announced deals for carrier partnerships in the United Kingdom with O2 and in Germany with Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile. Both of those launches are scheduled for November 9, but the launch period in France has not yet been released. According to some reports on the Web, the French launch will be November 29. Pricing has not yet been released.

Michael Gartenberg, an analyst

with industry research firm Jupiter Research, said that Apple’s ability to find carrier partners to “do what it takes to be part of that ecosystem” has been “very impressive.”

But he cautioned that European users, in France and elsewhere, have some different expectations of mobile phone usage. Subsidies of phone purchases by carriers are common, for instance, although Orange has told news outlets that it won’t subsidize the iPhone.

Text messaging is additionally increasingly widespread there. “Users will have to adjust to the lack of a physical keyboard” on the iPhone, he famous.

3G, EDGE, Wi-Fi

Another difference in Europe is a wider use of 3G. Apple CEO Steve Jobs has said that 3G impacts the device’s battery life, and won’t be available on the iPhone until at least next year. Wi-Fi networks can be used by the iPhone when available. Otherwise, the device relies on the slower EDGE…

Original post by Katherine Noyes