T-Mobile is to offer Germans Apple's 3G iPhone for just €1 ($1.54/£0.79) - provided they sign up for a new €69-a-month contract.

The deal centres on the 8GB iPhone, Reuters reports, but we're more interested in the package that will retail for €169.95. That's the equivalent of $262 - rather more than the $199 (€129), Apple CEO Steve Jobs promised the subsidised phone would cost worldwide.

There are no details on the T-Mobile website yet, but unless Steve was wrong - surely not? - we'd guess the €170 handset is a pay-as-you-go version.

If so, it'll be coming in at a UK equivalent of £134 - £135 less than the £269, the first-generation iPhone sold for. Which is, perhaps, good news for punters looking to PAYG as an easy route to unlocking: with no in-store sign-up, there'll be no contract to get out of when you render the handset free from network ties.

So the theory goes, at any rate.

Here in the UK, O2's iPhone page still has no details of what the carrier plans to charge for PAYG iPhones.

Back to T-Mobile, and it's contract deal is less appealing than O2's. The UK carrier will be offering the 3G iPhone for free on some tariffs. It's been claimed O2 will sell the handset on PAYG for £269.