iPhone watch: Japan and Spain confirmed

Maintaining the fever pitch in the run up to next week’s Apple extravaganza, the Californian king of cool gadgets has announced yet more iPhone partners.

On Wednesday, Japanese WCMDA operator Softbank announced it too would be carrying the iPhone later this year.

The news provided probably the most conclusive evidence yet that the next generation device is 3G, given that Softbank only operates a 3G network.

Japan was pretty much a given market though, in the light of a little trademark settlement earlier this year.

Not to be outdone, Telefonica, the Spanish parent of O2, said it has won a contract to deliver the iPhone this year too.

Both of these announcements are interesting in that they appear to be exclusive deals. Vodafone has won a contract to deliver the iPhone in a number of markets, except Spain, and Softbank is the only carrier in Japan to run with the device.