T-Mobile: Over 1 million iPhones on the U.S. network

T-Mobile's Chief Marketing Officer Cole Brodman has posted a message on the company's official blog about Apple's iPhone of all things. He says that customers have asked the service provider for the iPhone on the T-Mobile service, which of course isn't yet possible through official channels. But that hasn't stopped customers, says Brodman, from doing it anyway: the company is claiming over one million unlocked iPhones already used on the T-Mobile USA network.

Brodman goes on to pitch some of the top Android devices out there, which of course earns a great big "meh" from those of us already Apple-inclined. But it is interesting that T-Mobile is so openly courting unlocked iPhones. The company didn't quite go so far as to teach customers how to actually unlock an iPhone (we've got you there, however), but clearly it's tracking the iPhone's popularity, and a million customers is a solid base of people, especially when you consider all the steps people have to go through to get there.

Of course, if the AT&T/T-Mobile merger deal goes through, this won't be something T-Mobile will have to worry about any longer, as either the iPhone will become available on that network, or AT&T will combine the two networks anyway. But this kind of message shows just how popular the iPhone is -- even companies who don't benefit at all from its sales officially are trumpeting user numbers as their own.