When you see the headline “Apple secures Europe iPhone revenue deals” in a respected paper like the Financial Times, you take notice, because it reads as if a deal has been done with Apple and at least one mobile network to distribute the iPhone in Europe.

“Apple has succeeded in committing European mobile phone operators that want exclusively to sell its new iPhone to share parts of their revenues with the technology group,” the article begins.

“The contract, which was signed by three European mobile operators in recent days, requires that the operators hand over to Apple 10 per cent of the revenues made from calls and data transfers by customers over iPhones.”

“The contract was signed by T-Mobile of Germany, Orange of France and O2 in the UK, people familiar with the situation told FT Deutschland, the Financial Times’s sister paper.”

There’s the crunch. “People familiar with the situation”. In other words, “unnamed sources”. In other words… rumour.