Although if that was done prematurely without The Jobs O.K then expect that Voda will NOT be selling iphones - a truth that one video card manufacture learnt to their dismay when they announced their cards were to be in the next round of macs - only to find that all of a sudden they were not.

Prawn : It is not out of character at all for individual providers to leak info before Apple - in fact it is the norm. The europe experience has shown that.

What Apple does is what Rollo says - they create hype by saying nothing and getting other people [or other people just do it] to dribble out little bits of information. It is how they work the media every time. Sure, nothing is in concrete until it is said by Apple - or maybe even more when it is shipping - but that is like saying you always find things in the last place you look. It’s true, but doesn’t mean much.

Vodafone has clearly said that their customers will be able to buy the phone in those markets during this year. Sure, there is no exactness beyond that - but it is pretty clear they say that they have an agreement to sell the iphone this year - which is a measure of exactness more than what Telstra is saying.

Admittedly Telstra is being exact in one way - they are saying exactly nothing.

The real question is what are the sales & marketing monkeys of Telstra saying to those customers who call and ask the question?

A company like Apple ultimately doesn’t give a toss who the carrier eventually is, so long as they can shift the units to the consumer.

I note that the source is unnamed and that Telstra also declined to comment… just like everyone else ;)