All jokes aside, it’s hard to miss a big new product from Apple, even if you’re not in the slightest bit interested with technology. That’s certainly the case on Twitter, where Apple, iPhone and WWDC (The conference it was unveiled at) were all trending topics before Apple executive Phil Schiller even took to the stage.

What you may or may not have seen was another trending topic on Twitter today that emerged once Apple fans had swept the broken shards of jaw off the floor and duck taped them back together to read through the fine print: #o2fail.

O2 is the network with exclusive rights in the UK to the iPhone 3G S, as the new model is called, and in the hours after the iPhone unveiling, it put up the pricing plans for the different tariffs, along with a little smallprint. Unlike last year, when original iPhone owners were able to get out of their contract and pay a set amount to jump to the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3G owners will have to pay extra to get out of their current contracts. Almost everyone I follow seemed to have a gripe about O2 today, and some Twitterers even started petitions for “reasonable” iPhone pricing.

Now, some of O2’s pricing is fair enough (The iPhone 3G is subsidised by O2 on monthly contracts, so it needs you to cough up for the entire contract to stay in the black), and some of it is Scrooge-like (Despite a price cut in the US, the iPhone 3G is still the same price in the UK it was a year ago). But it’s fascinating to now see Twitter as the – realtime – forum to air all these woes. Even the petitions doing the rounds are built with the Twitter API.

O2 has actually been answering questions on Twitter via @o2 for some time now, and while it didn’t address general 140 character grumbles, it was responding to any individual tweet about the new iPhone pricing throughout last night and today. And despite the hostile messaging, it was staying positive and helpful throughout (“We’ll be in touch when you are eligible to upgrade”).

The upshot? You’ve got to give credit to O2’s marketing department, if not the beancounters elsewhere in the company. It’s recognised Twitter is an important, and crucially public, communication platform. It expected questions to come flooding in on Twitter, and it was on hand to answer them when they did. If only all companies tried to be this accessible.