RSSApple Estimates 250,000 Unlocked iPhones
By the Betanews Staff | Published October 23, 2007, 10:55 AM
During its quarterly earnings conference call Monday, Apple Chief Operating Officer Timothy Cook estimated that 250,000 iPhones were sold to people with the intention of unlocking them, adding that most of those sales happened after the $200 price drop.
While it's not entirely clear how Cook calculated such a number, it likely relates to the discrepancy between sold phones and those that were actually activated on AT&T's network. 1.4 million iPhones have been sold in total, meaning that a whopping 17% were intended to be unlocked by customers. Hackers have managed to bypass the device's restrictions, but Apple warns that future updates could make an unlocked iPhone inoperable, just as firmware version 1.1.1 did temporarily.
Yea AT&T is paying Apple a premium for the exclusive rights... And when they are not seeing the activations they are not seeing a return on their investment. This is why Apple tried to brick the phones and force a factory reset to reassign it to AT&T. But the hackers just worked around the problem, as they always will in such cases.
Thing is THis was a very very bad deal for AT&T. they should have know this but had no clue about the market place for the item... In teh end Apple is taking heat from AT&T to make it stop or face a loss of the royalty revenue.
From a customer stand point the iPhone is dam expensive. Like buying a luxury car and being told you can only gas it up in exxon/mobile gas stations... OUCH!!! If they would have made the phone $200 cheaper and those phones were only for AT&T and the ones at the original price would work anyoplace, this would have solved the problem for MOST people. They would just get the more expesive one...
Better yet they could have offered the $200 rebate for those that sign up for AT&T service. again problem solved... But instead they are forcing an exclusivity plan on their customers. And they are just not willing to use such a poor service as AT&T which is hardly the most affordable, and in some cases not available in some areas for new subscription service.
Within a year or so we will see iPhones sold for any service I hope legally. But till then we are dependent on the hacker network to provide the service apple refuses to do. But the early adopters that spent the MOST for the phone expect the BEST service, not 2nd grade... thats why they use the phone as they choose, not the manufacturer...
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|Why would Apple care and why would they restrict access? They still made the sales!
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|What would be hilarious is if someone found out that the Apple iTunes software (pardon the pun) "phoned home" and told Apple if you are using an "unlocked" phone.
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|SO WHAT
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|If I were AT&T, I'd be pissed. Of course, if I were AT&T, it would probably have gone bankrupt eons ago. :p
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