Really? I hope so and believe it when I see it, but the source in the article is a link to a mobile shopping site... would it not be in their interest to get lots of people looking at their site by posting an interesting news story like this?

Second, without pointing the fingers, might it not be in one of the involved parties interests to put this rumour about so that it can keep the other one on their toes?

And following the launch of the iPod touch and being left out of the app store, if o2 are being penalised for not selling enough phones I would feel pretty hard done by: one would assume it was Apple who supplied certain stores with 6 (or something equally ridiculous) on launch day...

However, I could see them being annoyed with the farce the problems with their instore activation system caused (still causing?) on launch - and stores not being able to activate because their macs needed IE6 etc etc...

And now the pricing structure has changed, subsidy, etc, that may have meant a re-negotiation over contracts. And a couple of months exclusivity on the 3G version sounds like a reasonable concession. Though you would've thought that o2 would be hammering the message home at the moment through advertising - but I guess it's hard to advertise something you don't have in stock...

I am all for it - as an Orange customer who's locked in for another 12 months, I want an iPhone now... and I think being on more than one network is good for all as it weakens Apple's strength (the networks can play them off against each other in negotiations now) whilst also expands the reach of the device (and means that there is another player in this area).