6 hours ago
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Éric Senterre, Roney Smith, Sarah Perez and 5 other people liked this
UNLOCK IT. We don't need a $99 iPhone. We need an UNLOCKED iPhone. iPhones for any and all carriers. Boom, profit. - abacab
That will happen, after Apple wrings all the cash it can out of ATT. - Phil Boiarski
Good for Wal-Mart, good for i-Phone, good for the country. We do not need unlocked phones with tekkies clogging the waves with gadgets. Proprietary software rules. - Prokofy Neva
We can't really expect to see a cheap AND unlocked phone. Do you think Apple's costs on the iPhone are less than $99 per unit? Less than $199 or $299? Even if they sold a ton of them at $99, they'd be selling them at a loss without being locked to a carrier. Contracts and subsidies are the reason most cell phones are so cheap. Remember the first gen iPhone, at $499 and $599? No subsidy. You can actually buy an unlocked iPhone 3G from AT&T for about $500. They need to get their money out of you somehow. - Josh Bancroft
Wait, ATT offers an -unlocked- iPhone, or is it a no-plan-required-at-purchase phone? That's news to me if it's actually unlocked. - abacab
And none of this precludes carriers from offering subsidies with contracts anyway. - abacab
abacab, when the iPhone 3G was announced, it was stated that AT&T would sell an unlocked (not just "no contract required") iPhone, for (I think) $499, sometime "after the launch". I don't know if it's available yet, or if it's available online, but it should be. Try asking about it in an AT&T store. I'm looking for a link, but can't find anything now... - Josh Bancroft
I always understood that to be a "no contract required" offering they'd bring out later, not an actually unlocked iPhone. I'll ask, but I'm betting my local ATT store flunkies have no idea. :( - abacab
lovely Prok, proponent of all-things-proprietary... Software is like sex: it's better when it's free. Linus Torvalds. - silpol
unlocked phones can be even 4 times cheaper, the only problem - carriers don't want them... yes, they want your arm and leg, and Apples stays with them, not with you :) don't trust my words - go search for unlocked phones ;) - silpol
Abacab, I distinctly remember they were going to offer a "no contract" phone for something like $399, and an actual "unlocked" phone for $100 more. - Josh Bancroft
Not saying you're wrong, at all, but I guess I'll only believe it when I finally actually see it. :) - abacab
