From reading the original (German) article I think the price was the newspaper's guess.

$100 markup seems a bit low, but then the US$ is pretty weak.

Of course US price quotes don't include tax, so if the speculation is correct it would be fair. I'd still be pleasantly surprised.

http://www.onmyiphone.com/

I can't help but feel that locking consumers into a single operator (Vodafone, T-Mobile, AT&T or otherwise) is promoting an unfair monopoly.

The iPhone is a phone, therefore is should work on any phone network. Artificially restricting it to a single network is unfair to consumers.

Its fairly normal for Networks to pay good money for a period of exclusivity on a new Phone.

Monopoly is rubbish - there are plenty more phones around that do the job.

Get some perspective. Its just another phone at the end of the day.

They will be appearing unlocked on Ebay soon anyway.

Don't know if the german newspaper article already says this, but apparently the US iPhone already includes the T-Mobile and Vodafone logo graphics in its ROM...

What would happen if you got an e.g. German iPhone and then tried to use it with a US T-Mobile Sim? might that do the trick?