UK mobile phone network 3 could soon join Vodafone, Tesco Mobile, O2 and Orange in offering the iPhone, as it looks to refresh its product portfolio.

3 Chief Executive Officer Kevin Russell revealed his interest in carrying Apple handsets in an in interview with TechRadar in which he also disclosed that the network is looking at offering the iPad.

Mr Russel said: "To range the iPad would be a great thing and the iPhone in time on the right terms, but we prefer to be doing something that other guys [networks] would be less comfortable doing."

However, he also added that the bidding for the iPad was a little intense at the moment and that he did not feel that his company would be comfortable paying over the odds for an untested technology.

Mr Russell spoke further about his network's ambition to offer variety and diversity where the competition was lacking, which he admitted was not always a hugely profitable strategy, but one to which he was nonetheless committed.

3 looks as though it will also extend its range of Android-based smartphones in the future, picking up where its partnership with HTC over the Hero left off. Mr Russell said that he believes Android phones will come to fill a significant role in the 3 line-up soon.

The final big news to come out of the interview was that the music streaming service Spotify, which first launched on 3 when the HTC Hero arrived last year, will become the centrepiece of a number of new mobiles in 2010.