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Apple Cracks Down On iPhone Unlockers
An anonymous reader writes "It looks like Apple and its wireless operator partners have finally figured out a way of cracking down on iPhone unlockers by making it a requirement to sign up for a contract before you can get your hands one. "It's obvious why this has happened though. This method means you're tied into a contract, or you're paying O2 and Apple a massive wad of cash for the privilege of owning a 3G iPhone. We're disappointed about this decision, but it does make business sense." Both ATT in the US and O2 in the UK are implementing the new activation system on July 11th, when the iPhone 3G goes on sale."
Apple is going to have a serious problem applying this in a lot of European countries. They have laws that actually forbid this sort of tying 2 vendors into 1 product.
I know for a fact that France and the Netherlands have laws for that, and if I remember correctly, Germany has as well.
So either they're not going to be able to sell iPhones there, or they have to be sold seperately, which then opens them up for unlocking anyway.
Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
As far as I recall, Apple was actually shopping around for a few different providers. Apparently when they were in talks with Verizon there were too many demands on Verizon's end. (Surprised?) AT&T was the largest carrier available willing to let the phone be what Apple wanted it to be. Just something to think about.
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
If I'm going to be locked into a contract either way, I'd much rather have my phone subsidized (new plan) than not (old plan).
I was all set to buy one of the new iPhones until more data started leaking out. You know that nice iPhone plan they had? 450 minutes, unlimited data, 200 SMS for $60 a month?
Gone
In what can only be described as "easier", you now have to use the standard AT&T model. Their lowest plan is 450 minutes which is $45. You have to add $5 to get 200 SMS messages (note: this seems to include MMS and other things too, which is different). Then there is the iPhone data plan that you are required to buy: $30 a month.
So instead of a simple little $60 plan, they now expect me to pay... $80.
So let's see... $20 difference per month X 24 months = $480. Take out the cut they were paying to Apple (wasn't it like $5?) and that's another $120.
So AT&T's revenue goes up $600 per two year 3G contract.
I'm not so sure I want to pay $80 a month for an iPhone. I was hesitant with $60 but this makes me question things much more.
Congratulations again AT&T. You took the must buy product of the year for me and managed to screw it up.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
They do, in the UK you can purchase the new iphone on the pay as you go deal, which means no contract you pay the full price for the phone and you can do as you wish with it. Here is some info from the O2 deal.
If O2's network was good enough I wouldn't have so much of a problem with this. However, O2's network is simply not worth being tied into. I put an O2 sim into my HSDPA phone (TyTN II) and I swear it wasn't even getting 64kb/s, so it's not going to benefit much from the 3G version. If this were on Vodafone in the UK, I would extend the contract as that was several times faster than O2's when I tested it (It felt about 5x faster at least).
You deserve the mod points for the insightful statement that follows this, but I have to take exception to the above. Great Britain is an island, which contains the countries of England, Wales and Scotland, and forms part of the sovereign state of The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, or UK for short.
It was not until deregulation (carter era?? I cant quite recall when it happened now) that you could buy any old phone and attach it. It may also surprise you to learn there was only one phone company too.
At the time it made a lot of sense. The networks made a lot of assumptions about what was connected to them. They trusted the hardware. they trusted signals coming in from other nexuses. trust trust trust.
but just like trusting client side authentication leads to grief, the rise of phone phreaks injecting their own signals into a trusted network led to free phone calls.
I can still see why the cell phone company has reasons that they don't just want to permit any possible activity on their network. They are all about quality of service for as many possible people not an all-you-can buffet where a few people can pig out.
But I digress. Leasing telephone equipment has been the norm since alexander graham bell. this little experiement where you "purchase" a phone then lease the line has been pretty short lived so far. So get over it.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
There are countries like Belgium where it is illegal to sell a locked phone.
In Belgium there is no concept of subsidied phone. You buy your phone and your contract separately.
Some other countries like France allow locking but still requires that an unlocked version is sold ( it is currently possible to buy an unlocked iphone in France )
Sure Apple could buy a law, but it more realistic to think that the 199$ 'maximum price' was a hyperbole. ( Also think that currently the USD is worth nothing - taking Steve speech literally would mean an iPhone for 100 GBP in the UK - yeat, you can barely enter a Apple Store with that money in your pocket. )
On top of that,
Here at Brazil the operators can't sell locked phones. It's the law... some laws here were made to actually protect the consumer.
Yes, that's right. IPhone will be sold unlocked here at Brazil.
---- You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the "Rubik's" complex