iLounge

As next week’s Apple UK special event nears, separate reports have surfaced linking rumored European carriers to the iPhone. Reuters reports that Deutsche Telekom has clinched a deal to offer the iPhone in Germany through its T-Mobile unit, while MarketWatch has a report from Spanish news agency Efe that claims Spanish telecommunications company Telefonica SA acknowledged it is in talks with Apple over the right to sell the device in Spain. Finally, Gizmodo reports that their sources have confirmed the iPhone’s UK introduction for next week’s event, and that the phone will be offered by O2.

Scott Woolley, reporting for Forbes, has posted a scathing piece on the Apple TV titled “The iFlop.” Woolley points to Apple’s unwillingness to share sales data about the device, as well as recent contract disputes between the company and video content providers as partial reasons why he considers the device a failure.

Palm, Inc. shareholders have approved the partial sale of the company to a private equity firm. Along with the sale, Jonathan Rubinstein, former head of Apple’s iPod division, will join the company as executive board chairman, while former Apple CFO Fred Anderson will join Rubinstein on the company’s board.

Following a statement earlier this week that his company has a “perfectly good relationship” with Apple, News Corp. President and COO Peter Chernin told the UK’s Royal Television Society convention that the relationship was “pretty limited” and that he expects upcoming negotiations between the two companies to be “dicey and contentious.”