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La Repubblica, a well known Italian publication, is reporting, in Italian of course, that there will soon be a 3G iPhone in Italy.  However, this would be no normal release.  Supposedly there will be no carrier lock or two month agreement on the device whatsoever, it will just be sold at a higher retail price to begin with.  Telecom Italia Mobile will have the rights to sell the phone exclusively for the first few months, but customers will not have to use TIM as their carrier although it is estimated that 50% of Italian wireless customers use TIM anyways.

If this is the case, this would be a landmark deal for TIM.  Apple has been known to get whatever they want when it comes to deals about the iPhone.  If this rumor is true, Apple may have realized that in order for the phone to truly reach its potential, they need to make it more open.  It will be interesting to see how this unfolds as a 3G iPhone wasn’t expected to be even announced until WWDC in June.

As you may have heard already, NBC has decided that they are no longer going to sell their television shows on iTunes anymore. This includes shows like “The Office,” and “Heroes.” After the story appeared in the New York Times, Apple released a press release addressing the issue:

Apple® today announced that it will not be selling NBC television shows for the upcoming television season on its online iTunes® Store (http://www.itunes.com). The move follows NBC’s decision to not renew its agreement with iTunes after Apple declined to pay more than double the wholesale price for each NBC TV episode, which would have resulted in the retail price to consumers increasing to $4.99 per episode from the current $1.99. ABC, CBS, FOX and The CW, along with more than 50 cable networks, are signed up to sell TV shows from their upcoming season on iTunes at $1.99 per episode.

Since then, NBC has come out and said that they never told Apple that they wanted to raise all prices to $4.99, but made a “request for flexibility in wholesale pricing, including the ability to package shows together in ways that could make our content even more attractive for consumers.” Basically they wanted to be able to set the price point of some shows higher than the current $1.99, and wanted to be able to bundle some shows with others.

Just like the Eminem lawsuit, in the end who is taking the content hurting in the end? Even though NBC’s shows account for between 30-40 percent of Apple’s video purchases, that is just money that is no longer going into NBC’s pocket, while also making their shows less widely available. Supposedly the two companies are still in talks, so there still is a chance that they can come to some sort of compromise before December when NBC’s contract runs out.

Press Release [Apple] NBC Response [paidContent]

According to the Times Online, O2 has won the exclusive carrier contract to bring Apple’s iPhone to the UK this Christmas. It just goes to show, that rumors, no matter how strong, don’t always come true. Apple has apparently decided to pursue the European market country-by-country, rather than providing the phone via one carrier (see: Vodafone) for the whole region.

In addition, Vodafone did not want to cave into Apple’s very particular demands in the contract. Of interesting note, O2 is owned by parent company Telefonica, the rumored carrier of the iPhone in Spain. The article also suggests that Apple is expected to sign on with T-Mobile in Germany (as previously reported), and Orange in France. Now, if we can just find out whether Apple will be doing an iPhone 1.1 with 3G capabilities…

Read [Times Online] via [MacRumors]

The Rheinisch Post, a daily German newspaper, is expected to report tomorrow that the T-Mobile unit of Deutshe Telekom has secured a carrier contract with Apple to bring the iPhone to Germany. The exclusive contract is to bring the mobile overseas for 450 euros ($612 US) in November. As Reuters mentions, others carriers rumoured to be bringing the phone to the rest of Europe include Vodafone in Britain, France Telecom in (duh) France, and Telefonica in Spain.

Read [Reuters] via [Engadget]