This morning saw mole phone network operator Vodafone announce that they had won the right to distribute the iPhone in ten countries. However, in Italy, one of the ten, it seems the contract isn’t an exclusive one, with Telecom Italia also bragging the right to distribute the device. Could this mean Apple are doing a u-turn on having one exclusive distributor in each country?

Lawyers working for Apple have spent the last few months trying, and universally succeeding, to destroy any companies who have been selling iPhone clones. However, the Managing Director of one such company was shocked at their ruthlessness.

It was only last year that Greg Winn, a top executive with Australian telecommunications company Telstra, was blasting the iPhone, and telling Apple to stick to its knitting. Now, if the latest rumors are to be believed, Telstra will be distributing the iPhone in Australia, and may be launching it in late June. Though there is some evidence that Telstra won’t have the iPhone to itself.

When Apple is forced to do something it doesn’t want to do, it will usually find away around whatever is causing it grief.  And so it turns out “unlocked” iPhones sold in France aren’t truly unlocked.