Apple's iPhone will be an Exclusive!

Apple will have a phone! Rumors (with pictures, even) have been around since 2001...yet no phone. But there has to be one. Without an iPhone the iPod dominion will end. If competing phones can play music, have access to good music stores and competitive prices, look good and have a good interface, who is going to pay another $250 for an iPod just for the privilege of carrying yet another device? Pockets just can't deal. Eventually LG or Sony or someone will get it right.
So Apple needs to have a phone. Why there is no phone yet is the real question. The answer seems to be that Apple must partner with the mobile phone service providers -- Verizon, T-Mobile, Cingular, etc, the gatekeepers (them and the FCC) for any new phone hardware. But these companies want their own interfaces, branding, music store and so on. And they want a say in the phone design (horror).
Apple can't allow that (for good reason! Look at the mucked up piece of pretty junk the LG Chocolate turned out to be).
So, how can Apple gain the leverage it needs to control the hardware design and iTunes store connection?
The answer...
They will make an exclusive deal. The providers know that millions are waiting for an iPod phone. They know an exclusive means new customers and customer loyalty. And these will be customers who are into downloading music and other extra $ services--the most wonderful customers they could dream of. So a single provider will give up its perogative to alter the design and impose their ugly interface requirements in exchange for that Apple exclusive. They gain little or nothing if Apple offers the iPhone to every provider.
So Apple will make one deal with one Mobile phone company.
There have been dozens of rumors about imminent iPhones and imminent deals.
The lastest is that Apple has already come to an agreement with Cingular.
Apple iPod iPhone Cingular mobile exclusive