Did anyone expect Vodafone to actually carry an exclusive? If so, you lost. Telstra, it's over to you.
Australia will definitely be a multi-iPhone market, with Optus announcing that it will bring the iPhone to Australia later this year. Parent company Singtel announced the deal in a release even shorter than that used last week by Vodafone. Here for your five second amusement is the release in full:
Sydney, 12 May 2008 – Optus, SingTel, Bharti Airtel and Globe today announced that they have signed an agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone to Singapore, India, the Philippines and Australia later this year.
More information will be released at a later date.
That just leaves Telstra and Hutchison/3 as the only carriers who haven't announced the iPhone. If the current trend of non-committal, short releases continues, we expect Telstra to simply say "me too", and three to issue a release titled "3 i".
It also leaves some questions completely unanswered, such as whether the iPhones sold in Australia will be carrier-locked, and of course when they'll be available. We rang an Optus spokesperson to be met with the fastest and fiercest "No Comment!" we've been hit with in many years. We might even be tempted to say that along with signing up the iPhone, they've been taking lessons in non-comment from Apple, the company that more or less defined not commenting on IT issues.
Also see iPhone in Oz: why it'll be 3G and unlocked
And our iPhone launch story: Vodafone announces Australian iPhone