But everything is connected in the iOSphere: With the iPhone 5 expected between today and Dec. 31, the news caused Cult of Mac's Ryan Faas to wonder, ""

The short answer is: not anytime soon, according to Faas' reasoning. And interestingly, according to Rollup's reasoning, no one will care -- not the carriers, not Apple and not most of all the users.

Besides Virgin Mobile, Cricket in the U.S. also offers prepaid iPhones. There's no contract; the Virgin plans start at $30 a month for 300 minutes of voice, and unlimited texting and data; another $20 a month gives you unlimited voice also. But you pay the full cost of the phone: $649 the 16GB iPhone 4S and $549 for an 8GB iPhone 4. And those are the only models available for prepaid.

Faas notes that Virgin's phone portfolio offers mainly phones that were released first on parent Sprint about a year ago. He argues, without really supporting his claim, that "Sprint makes more money selling on-contract phones that guarantee a monthly revenue stream for the length of the contract." The result, he says, is that the carrier "has a strong incentive to offer the latest and greatest options only to Sprint customers under contract." (He also notes some phone makers might prohibit Sprint from launching the newest models on a prepaid subsidiary.)

Faas doesn't really delve into the market dynamics from the viewpoint of prepaid customers, though he notes somewhat vaguely that they want "solid" phones and "flexibility."