Apple Now Selling Unlocked iPhone 4 in U.S.

[d3vi1]

I always laugh when people parade around that list. There's 27 EU countries? With the exception of France, Germany, Italy and UK all the rest have the population of US cities. There's over 300million people in the US so the use of average is a joke. All that matters is how fast your connection in your city is. It's not like the countries with faster internet access win more Nobel awards or dominate the world economy

OK bloke, let's average out... EU has 501 million inhabitants, the states have 308 million. Please don't use that argument. Heck, you have only 7 states above 10 million (CA, TX, NY, FL, IL, PA and OH). 15 of the States of the former rebellious colonies are under 2 million, smaller than most European cities.

My point isn't even only about EU27, see Japan, South Korea, Russia and others, you have 31 countries above you (most of them from EU27, but not all). The biggest point is that regarding the price of bandwidth, minutes, TV and all the rest of the Telecom services, you are lagging even more. You can indeed buy decent bandwidth in the States also, I'm quite OK even with 10Mbps, even though I'm used to 100. Unfortunately, you have a problem with the price.

Regarding the 326 nobel laureates that the US prides itself with, lets see how many the EU27 countries have: 454. Guess what, ours are not imported on H1B visas.

The last argument in your speech is the best: dominating world economy. You don't dominate anything, you only start most world financial crisis. The Chinese are accusing you of being close to defaulting on your debts. The US federal budget deficit is of 43% this year, all EU countries are <10% and average at 6.4%. Good luck paying for the 43%. You continuously spend more than you earn and this is the reason for your impending failure. You love speculation and easy money. You all believe that you deserve to be millionaires.

Here's the only argument that you haven't made: Apple products are US products. Though I am quite sure than I can also give them up. Actually Apple products are the only US products that I use. What European products do you use? Your car (or is it Japanese)? Your solar panels? Your clothes? Your jewelry? Half of the IKEA furniture in your house?

Man, I was bored! Haven't fed the trolls in a while. My apologies to the other readers.

 

[barnetty]

I believe these unlocked iphones will ultimately be more for tourists than for US citizens.

Whenever i visit apple stores in the us its mostly foreigners buying up IPADs, ipods, etc. and probably will buy Iphones now to take back home and activate....thats what i would do anyways.

For all of you in Europe and other countries you should consider getting some kind of Mailboxes, etc. type deal and just have for when you order stuff from the US.

 

[iEvolution]

LOL at charging $649 for a 16GB model that probably costs the company a little over $100 to make.

What a damn rip off.

The cell phone industry is just one scam after the other really. All phones SHOULD come unlocked and contacts should be illegal, to me contracts tell me their service isn't good enough to keep people so they have to lock them in to make profit.

 

[crazytiger86]

LOL at charging $649 for a 16GB model that probably costs the company a little over $100 to make.

What a damn rip off.

The cell phone industry is just one scam after the other really. All phones SHOULD come unlocked and contacts should be illegal, to me contracts tell me their service isn't good enough to keep people so they have to lock them in to make profit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_contract
Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905)

The right to contract is a judicially recognized and protected freedom.

(Who says you dont learn something new every day? )

 

[belalrawi]

Question. With a factory unlocked iphone 4, could I use the tethering feature with my unlimited att plan, or does the carrier still have the ability to limit that feature to those with the 2GB tiered data plans.

 

[jcbauerca]

Hi everyone.

I called ATT to get an unlock code for my iPhone 4 today because I was out of contract and they said they did not know anything about it and said to call Apple care. So I called Apple care and they didn't know anything about it either but would elevate my inquiry.

So everybody please call Apple to request an unlock code so they will set up a procedure to unlock our phones on request like all other phones with ATT and TMobile after end of contract.

Thanks

 

[xodiak]

.

.

 

[g35]

Question. With a factory unlocked iphone 4, could I use the tethering feature with my unlimited att plan, or does the carrier still have the ability to limit that feature to those with the 2GB tiered data plans.

Can we have a sticky, please, that reads:

Everything will remain exactly the same (except new iPhones purchased for full price from the Apple Store will be usable with all GSM microsim cards, not just AT&T.)

Sorry to be a dick but come on people. Why would AT&T automatically or accidentally give you perks/extra features? AT&T only offering tethering on 2GB plans has nothing to do with the fact that the phone is locked to AT&T, it's because you've got an AT&T sim card in there and they can impose whatever rules they want on their services. That's going to be the case whether it's locked or not.

 

[iKennett]

£395 + Sales tax in case any of you brits going to Florida/Vegas/NY/LA etc were wondering what it works out at.

If its out in time (with enough stock) when I'm out there is September I'll be picking one up but I suspect I'll just miss it!

 

[iKennett]

Question. With a factory unlocked iphone 4, could I use the tethering feature with my unlimited att plan, or does the carrier still have the ability to limit that feature to those with the 2GB tiered data plans.

Carrier can still force settings on your phone... Had an unlocked iPhone 4 since day 1 but changed carries once. First one didn't allow it unless I paid more and my current allows it but capped at 512mb a month.

 

[macpro1]

I had a quick question on the unlocked iphone 4s. This might be a silly question but I will ask it anyways. If I were to buy an unlocked iphone 4 from apple can I still use the sim card of a pre-paid phone sim card like the gophone instead of the sim card that is provided? I know you have to cut the sim card into a micro sim card in order for it to fit but does anybody have a clue whether this will work or not? I apologize for such a question. I am very curious to see if it will work on an unlocked store bought apple iphone 4.

 

[anjinha]

While I'm excited by the possibility of an unlocked iPhone (the less carrier control, the better), I just don't see how this makes any financial sense for Americans.

Right now I get a subsidized iPhone every year from ATT because of the high rate plan we have. This means that I pay $450 less every year in device costs. Over the course of 12 months, I would need to shave an additional $37.50 off of my bill in order for the unlocked iPhone to make financial sense. The problem is, there is no way for me to knock this much off of my monthly bill because the only carrier that can fully utilize the GSM iPhone in the US is ATT. Since smaller carriers like Boost Mobile and MetroPCS all use CDMA, I would not be able to use a discount carrier.

Even if you only qualify for a new phone once every two years, the math still doesn't add up. It would require being able to pay $18.75 less per month.

I can see how this would work for those people who travel abroad frequently, but for most of us who don't get the chance to travel internationally often, it makes little sense to pay $450 for the luxury of being able to take the same phone with you.

AND since ATT is trying to buy out T-Mobile, it seems like GSM competition within the US is all but over. Unless discount carriers start offering support for GSM iPhones (as in full support-data and all) I don't see why we should be very excited about this as American customers.

On the other hand, I'm sure this is exciting for Europeans who will take advantage of the summer travel season, a weak Dollar, and the advantages of a sales tax rate that is below 10% in most states.

You can use AT&T Prepaid. It's not officially supported (and you will have to cut down a normal prepaid SIM to Micro SIM size since they don't offer Micro SIMs in prepaid) but it works. That's what I've been using while I'm visiting the U.S. and it's cheaper than a normal AT&T contract plan.

 

[CalBoy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_contract
Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905)

The right to contract is a judicially recognized and protected freedom.

(Who says you dont learn something new every day? )

Well then, how about a little better history?

Lochner was overturned by Williamson v. Lee Optical Co.

 

[MattInOz]

Yeah we are paying over an extra $300 for the 32GB , which is a bit rude.
Sure there's 10% GST, but thats pretty much it.

Ah well, i'm hoping the next iphone normalises the pricing.

Not just GST Apple have to factor in Currency movements over the product life, and Apple Australia has to take their cut. Would think the next iPhone should still drop in price at least $150 dollars to $849.

 

[ToroidalZeus]

OK bloke, let's average out... EU has 501 million inhabitants, the states have 308 million. Please don't use that argument. Heck, you have only 7 states above 10 million (CA, TX, NY, FL, IL, PA and OH). 15 of the States of the former rebellious colonies are under 2 million, smaller than most European cities.

My point isn't even only about EU27, see Japan, South Korea, Russia and others, you have 31 countries above you (most of them from EU27, but not all). The biggest point is that regarding the price of bandwidth, minutes, TV and all the rest of the Telecom services, you are lagging even more. You can indeed buy decent bandwidth in the States also, I'm quite OK even with 10Mbps, even though I'm used to 100. Unfortunately, you have a problem with the price.

Europe
Area 3,930,000 sq mi
Population 731,000,000
Pop. density 181/sq mi

Continental United States
Area 3,119,884.69 sq mi
Population 306,675,006
Pop. density of 103/sq mi

You can see the EU carriers get more customers per square mile. Most americans like being able to go from NY to LA and still have service. Show me how many EU carriers get service from Lisbon to Kiev (about the same distance as NY to LA)?

 

[imageWIS]

I wonder when (if) AT&T will offer to unlock iPhones of customers who have fulfilled their 2-year contract.

A resounding +∞

 

[mrbrown]

Don't you have to pay the local sales tax for the unsubsidized price? So a 32gb model in California at 8.25% would cost you $61.79 in taxes on top of the subsidized price.

It depends where you are.

I thought only a handful of states (CA & RI?) made you pay sales tax on the full unsubsidized cost, even if you're buying a subsidized phone.

 

[mKizzo]

I had a quick question on the unlocked iphone 4s. This might be a silly question but I will ask it anyways. If I were to buy an unlocked iphone 4 from apple can I still use the sim card of a pre-paid phone sim card like the gophone instead of the sim card that is provided? I know you have to cut the sim card into a micro sim card in order for it to fit but does anybody have a clue whether this will work or not? I apologize for such a question. I am very curious to see if it will work on an unlocked store bought apple iphone 4.

The point of an unlocked phone is that you can put any sim card in there. Pre-paid or contract from any carrier in the world (that works on a GSM network)

P.S. There will be no sim included with an unlocked iPhone.

 

[Trauma1]

In the United States, there are several, lesser known discount GSM carriers. Simple Mobile (which is an MVNO) is one that another poster referred to. They offer unlimited talk/text/data for $50 a month. I doubt there will be any better deal than that in the United States. So here are some numbers under the most basic, single-user circumstances for a two-year period (excluding taxes, fees, etc -- which both would have):

AT&T locked iPhone 4 16GB: $199
AT&T 450 mins: $40 per month
AT&T 200MB data: $15 per month
$1,519 Cost of Ownership

Unlocked GSM iPhone 4 16GB: $649
Simple Mobile Unlimited plan: $50
$1,849 Cost of Ownership

Here are monthly break-even points for AT&T:
481 non nights & weekends/M2M/Rollover minutes (@ $0.45/min)
69 text messages (@ $0.20/text)
46 MMSs (@ $0.30/MMS)
600MB ($15 for additional 200MB automatically added when limit reached)
1 hour of calls from outside the United States (highly variable, but a safe figure)

Obviously different plans/packages have different rates with different usage charges. And those break even points will be lower when used in combination with each other. But if one can absolutely and consistently come in below those numbers, then AT&T has a lower cost of ownership by about $13.75 per month under the most basic conditions. As a frame of reference, a totally unlimited package with AT&T would end up being $4,279.

Some qualitative factors to consider are ease of activation/switching, service, reliability, customer support, the value of EDGE vs 3G speeds, and buying a phone that will have a successor in the coming months, to name a few.

There's also the possibility of using pre-paid SIM cards in the US.

 

[MattInOz]

LOL at charging $649 for a 16GB model that probably costs the company a little over $100 to make.

What a damn rip off.

The cell phone industry is just one scam after the other really. All phones SHOULD come unlocked and contacts should be illegal, to me contracts tell me their service isn't good enough to keep people so they have to lock them in to make profit.

more like $187.51 to make. Before you add the OS and Apple supplied software.

 

[lucyna]

When will it ship to other countries?

 

[Trauma1]

more like $187.51 to make. Before you add the OS and Apple supplied software.

+ packaging, distribution, and operational costs.

 

[fkhan3]

LOL at charging $649 for a 16GB model that probably costs the company a little over $100 to make.

What a damn rip off.

The cell phone industry is just one scam after the other really. All phones SHOULD come unlocked and contacts should be illegal, to me contracts tell me their service isn't good enough to keep people so they have to lock them in to make profit.

Apple like every other company is in the business of making money and maximize profits. There are also cheap go phones available for $19.99 without contract if that suits your needs.

 

[terraphantm]

more like $187.51 to make. Before you add the OS and Apple supplied software.

That was a year ago. It's very possible that prices have fallen enough to bring the costs down to ~$100.

 

[dr Dunkel]

You can see the EU carriers get more customers per square mile. Most americans like being able to go from NY to LA and still have service. Show me how many EU carriers get service from Lisbon to Kiev (about the same distance as NY to LA)?

I have never had a problem with service when travelling in Europe. Companies like Vodafone have cover all over the place - through own net, subsidiaries or partners. No need to get another sim or plan. Or did I get your question wrong?