What on earth is going on with iPhone supplies? Earlier in the week, O2 revealed that some 200,000 people had signed up online to register interest in an iPhone – and apologetically announced that “Apple can only supply us with a small proportion of that number to start with.”

Indeed, supply is apparently so far short of demand that the company can now say nothing more encouraging than “we are confident that all customers who want an iPhone 3G will get one by the end of this summer.”

Yet at the same time, Apple stores are somehow flooded with the things. An employee at the Regent Street branch confirmed to our reporter that there was no stock shortage in the company’s own stores. “Hey, we’re Apple,” he boasted: “what do you expect?”

10% of nothing

Now, I won’t shed too many tears for O2 over all this. After all, regardless of where you buy your iPhone, they still get your business for eighteen months.

Still, I’d be very interested to know more about the deal whereby O2 distributes iPhones. Does the company get commission for each iPhone it sells? You’d imagine it would.

But right now it has no iPhones to sell. Instead, customers are forced to go to Apple, which miraculously has plenty. O2 is left out in the cold until such time as Apple deigns to rescue it. And in the meantime, all that money is flowing through Apple’s tills instead of O2’s.

I’m sure it’s all legal and above board. I’m sure Apple never promised O2 more than a minimum allocation of iPhones. But the current situation clearly shows that O2 is a supplicant partner in this relationship, and that Apple has no scruples about exploiting its dominant position.

Still, in a way that’s a healthy thing to see — especially on a day like today, when Apple’s reputation has never been more buoyant.

Because while Apple fans may try to paint the company as the yang to Microsoft’s yin, it’s important to remember that ultimately its motivations are no different. And nor, sometimes, are its methods.