iPhone heads to Virgin Mobile off-contract

It appears that the Apple's iPhone won't only be on one line of service with no contract this year, with Virgin Mobile being reported to grab the most popular phone on the planet as soon as July 1st. This report comes from Market Watch where they've got a source familiar with the matter speaking about the device's jump into the prepaid world, starting with Leap Wireless and now hitting up Virgin. This move is reportedly helping Virgin Mobile's parent company satisfy their $15.5 billion dollar contract with Apple over four years.

This news will likely be seen as another blow to T-Mobile who remains the only one of the four top mobile carriers in the USA to not have the iPhone in their store. We have heard, on the other hand, that the pink network may be offering off-contract deals to iPhone owners sometime in the future – when, though, is still a mystery.

Leap is set to start selling the iPhone on the 22nd of June for $499.99 in its 16GB iteration as the iPhone 4S and for $399.99 as the iPhone 4 with just 8GB of internal storage. These prices are very likely similar to what Virgin Mobile will be selling the devices for when they're allowed to offer the device later this year. Virgin Mobile currently offers a $35 a month unlimited data plan with throttled speeds after 2.5GB of use, while Leap's similar plan is $55 for unlimited data, text, and talk, also with a throttling clause after just a couple of GB per month.

Have a peek at our timeline of iPhone news from the past couple of weeks to see what you'll be grabbing this summer.