Unlocking iPhones, what the?
Everybody wants an iPhone
Admit it, you want one too. Sure it may not be a priority. The price point may push it out of a real goal for you. No matter what reason you don’t have one yet, it’s cool. It’s svelt. It’s high-technology, and heck it’s actually really useful!
Personally I want the google maps functionality. I want to be able to stand on the street near anywhere in the USA, pull up google maps and find where I want to go. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in a city I’m unfamiliar with and wanted to get some nice food. Well there’s no easy way to find a nice place if you don’t have someone to ask. Phonebooks are dead, and impossible to find regardless. I don’t want to spend an hour walking or driving around a city I don’t know unless I have a ton of freetime (hey it’s fun if it’s what you inteded to do.) It’d also be nice to pull up the best route to the airport without having to stop in somewhere to get a map or use
Let’s unlock them!
The primary gripe people seem to have after cost, is the fact Apple has chosen to lock their iPhones to one provider. I can understand that gripe on some levels, and I understand Apple’s decision on other levels.
People don’t want to switch cell providers. The main reason for this is that the providers have everyone locked in a nasty contract, usually 2 years. Cancellation presents a hefty fee, and you just have to enter into another contract afterwards. Some people are loyal due to good service–we all know that’s few and far between. Mainly people don’t want to switch due to the costs incurred.
So to avoid switching, people want to unlock an iPhone. To do this you have to use some third party software that’s still being developed. It seems to work pretty well so far, but it’s kind of a gamble. Once unlocked you can use a sim card from another provider (assuming they use sim cards.) That means you can use… TMobile.
There’s only one other US gsm cell provider that uses SIM cards
Most people don’t care about the provider lock in
There’s a lot of noise about the provider lock, but it’s really a non-issue. Just look at the sales. It really comes down to people that want to run third party programs, or use some iPhone features for free. People want to use their own custom ringtones without buying them. People want to access non-apple applications natively on their iPhones. Ok, I sympathize here. I understand that desire, and really I’m for people being able to do so. I think it should void the warranty and support, but not be fought against. If you want to muck with your gizmo, I say go for it.
Verizon phones are all locked by default. They don’t have sim cards. Switching providers requires work from your provider–it’s not something you can do on your own. You can unlock Verizon phones to use features like custom ringtones, but Verizon will no longer service the phone. This seems to be the model Apple should be following
Aggressive Response
With the latest software update to iPhones, if you’ve unlocked yours you’ll end up with an expensive paperweight. It’s not clear if this is intentional, or just the way the software works and Apple hasn’t taken the time to work out a way to accomodate both types of phones. From the press releases, it seems like the former might be the case. It’s a pretty strong response, and seems against the customer. Of course it’s a tiny minority of the customers, but that doesn’t make it alright.
There’s over 1 million iPhones being used in the US now. That’s a huge amount for them being available for so short a time. The media response to these issues–locking and bricking–has been immense, which doesn’t make sense considering the number of people involved. So what gives? Smear campaign? Apple buzz backfiring? All press is good press? I don’t know. I find it very interesting considering there’s just two providers you could realistically use an iPhone on right now. I find it very interesting considering how few third party programs exist as of yet.
I don’t think Apple should be bricking iPhones intentionally, but I do think their focus should be on the customers using the device as it was designed and intended. They shouldn’t waste resources accomodating people using it in other ways, but they shouldn’t target them for punishment either. I’m interested to see how it plays out over the next few months, and what changes may be in place for iPhone version 2.0 should it come along. I haven’t picked up one yet, but as the price has come down it’s getitng more and more attractive.
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