T-Mobile wants the iPhone. Bad.

Being the No. 4 wireless carrier in the U.S. doesn't earn you a lot of respect, especially when it comes to grabbing the attention of one of the most important smartphone makers in the market: Apple (NAS: AAPL).

In February, T-Mobile reported that it lost more than 700,000 customers in the fourth quarter, and CEO Philipp Humm was upfront about the culprit: "Not carrying the iPhone led to a significant increase in contract deactivations in the fourth quarter of 2011." With open arms, T-Mobile has always welcomed adventurous users who are willing to unlock their devices, but even then the iPhone is relegated to 2G data speeds because of frequency-band incompatibilities.