Today Apple began selling unlocked iPhone 4 phones in the Apple Store. I’m not an industry insider and certainly no fan-boy but that’s not going to stop me from shooting my mouth off about this. Lance Ulanoff over at pcmag.com took a very strong stance that Apple will NOT do this and his reason is simply: “Apple isn’t stupid.“ Well I beg to differ and we now know just how wrong he was.
I think that if there’s anything we’ve come to know about Apple it’s that they are more than willing to get behind a trend these days. Maybe the fact that the U.S. Library of Congress declared jail-breaking your iPhone to be acceptable use, and also the willing and persistent community of support available for jail-breaking and unlocking your iDevice (be it pad or phone) that lets Apple know that there’s many people out here that want their phone unlocked.
In this case unlocking refers to a phone that is not tied by the manufacturer to a single service provider. A phone that is technically capable would be able to be used with any GSM carrier. In the US that translates to AT&T or T-Mobile and other companies that buy airtime from them (mostly smaller regional carriers). This does not refer to jailbreaking which allows non Apple App Store provided applications to be loaded, which is something Apple will never endorse or approve. Verizon phones need not apply.
Lance also says that “In fact, most iPhone jail-breakers know that hacked iPhones can turn into useless “bricks” when reconnected to iTunes for an update.“ I’m not sure where he took his poll from, but those of us jail-breaking our iPhones aren’t getting our software updates from iTunes. Indeed it’s actually my other half – who doesn’t jail-break – whose iPhone has bricked twice during software updates from iTunes. It seems that Apple can’t seem to decide what the gs.apple.com server should resolve to in DNS.
One of the issues raised by Ulanoff is that he believes the activation process would be more difficult. I’m not sure why he thinks this is so. I’ve worked in the cell phones sales and technical support. It’s no more difficult to activate a phone if it’s unlocked than if it’s locked. Unless you’re the one actually unlocking it. That can be quite irksome until you get the hang, and you don’t want to do it without help.
Ulanoff also sites the Google’s Samsung Nexus S which is for sale unlocked at $529 – but he asks rhetorically: “how many consumers in the U.S. are actually doing this?” – Why would it matter? This is comparing Apples to Oranges. Or Apples to Googles – but you get the point that it’s the iPhone people want. They can already get Android on any carrier so why indeed would they need to do this?
Ulanoff’ quotes a research analyst on mobile technology trends as saying: “less than 1% of all mobile phones were sold unlocked in the United States” and then he remarks: “Ooh, that sure does sound like a scintillating market for Apple.” Does he understand that people can’t buy something that isn’t for sale? When’s the last time you saw an unlocked phone for sale from a retailer? No, those are on sale over at eBay where I sold a two generations old iPhone for nearly the same cost as the upgrade price on the iPhone 4 just because I unlocked the carrier on the baseband so the dude in Alabama could run it on TMobile. I think it’s safe to say there’s revenue lost to Apple there. In this case a lost $649 which is what the unlocked phones will sell for.
It is also common for unlocked phones to make their way to countries that have a GSM carrier but the local service provider does not have an agreement with Apple to sell the iPhone.
So, sorry Lance, but there is definitely a market for unlocked iPhones I am thrilled that Apple finally got in on this game. It will be a great way for them to clear out their inventory of iPhone 4s phones before bringing us the long awaited iPhone 5. I wasn’t holding my breath – I’m just saying.
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