AT&T and Apple Tightening Policies to Reduce iPhone Unlocking

[KaiMac]

ATTpple

I just talked to at&t and they told me there will be NO pay-as-you-go option. It will REQUIRE the two year contract. That is it! Interesting.

ATTpple would have avoided so many of these customer frustrating issues if they had just sold the phone with an international standards based GSM signal and then the customer could leave the store and take it to ATT, TMobile or whomever and activated it as they wanted.....or not activated it at all and just used it with wifi and voip. Steve really dropped the ball/phone on this one. I'll be keeping my iPhone 1 and then probably going back to HTC when I'm ready.

 

[j763]

I just talked to at&t and they told me there will be NO pay-as-you-go option. It will REQUIRE the two year contract. That is it! Interesting.

Interesting? More like ***********ing.

 

[matttrick]

Yes, "pathetic" when people like you have no rebuttal. There isn't one. I've shot you down far too many times, and not a single thing you have said required a reply any better than: "Consider purchasing another product. Nobody is forcing you to buy this product, or limiting your purchasing options. There are many phones available out there for you to choose from if what Apple and AT&T offers does not meet your needs".

I just used a watered-down analogy because you couldn't conjure up a single, solitary rebuttal. I could water it down even further if it would make it easier for you to swallow.



PS: I agree with you that Apple should just sell the iPhone to everyone, but with the AT&T agreement, they can't. This scenario we have now isn't the original one Steve intended. That's clear. Steve likely wanted 1 price, unlimited internet, WiFi hotspots, visual voice-mail implementation, and some money from AT&T for their increased business. Whatever they're doing now is Plan B, and I'm sure Apple is just riding out this contract with AT&T, which ends in 2010 or so.

Until then, you do have other options. Nobody screwed you over. You're only screwed over if you sign up with AT&T just to get the iPhone, despite the fact you knew beforehand that their service didn't work where you live. However, that's just screwing yourself over.

you have not shot down a single one of my arguments. ever. all you have done is try to imply that i think apple is obliged to do anything to please me, which i never did. all i said is i am not happy about what is going on and you proceed to tell me about restaurants, which has nothing to do with this, even in your terrible analogy.

i had the same rebuttal that i have had all along: this situation sucks. ive never said anything more. and actually ATT did screw me over by billing me $350 for service a year after i cancelled. but that has nothing to do with what is going on now, and i never said it did.

you keep trying, and failing, to stretch my statements into something they are not. you act like there is something inherently wrong with me coming to a forums about apple products, and *gasp* complaining about something that apple is doing with one of their products.

i don't claim they owe me anything. i'm just voicing my displeasure, justifiably.

 

[gkarris]

The "Exclusive Handset" thing is very prevalent here in the US, and now with the iPhone, they want to carry that all over the world - except for the countries that have laws against it.

So much for freedom...

I had a couple of bad experiences with Cingular (back then) so I refuse to give them my business.

It would be like everyone who wants to use MS Windows has to get a Dell computer to use it...

(vomits...)

 

[j763]

No you are wrong. You think the $4.00, $4.50 is just at the pump? And soon to be $5.00? There needs to be some action done about this.

And for those in other countries that have higher gas, they have something to show for it. Example, in Holland, gas is very expensive, but in Holland, you can walk about 1 minute then get on a train that will take you anywhere at 70+MPH (although in kilometers), whereas here (California), public transportation is a joke.

There are lots of countries with higher gas prices and comparably crap public transport. Australia, for example, has a horrendous public transportation system and gas is about $5.30US/US gal. Others do have it worse than Californians

 

[guifa]

A lot of iPhones were being sent over seas. Now that they're gonna have 72 countries or whatever, why freak out so much? Almost every country will have it. But then again... some will want to be on T-Mobile or whatever.

Or what about someone like me? At home I have T-Mobile, here in Spain I have Yoigo. In three weeks I leave to go home to the States, will be there for three months, then back to Spain for about 9 more months, then to the States for another three, and then from there to who knows where.

I ain't paying the roaming fees for that. I need to be able to switch out SIM cards so I can use my accounts in the different countries. Doesn't matter that both Spain and the US have iPhone, if I have to have a contract, it's pointless unless they're gong to drastically drop US pay-as-you rates (sadly here in Spain pay-as-you go is about the same as contract)

 

[hiimamac]

Can you imagine what the line is going to be like when people are at the Apple/ATT store trying to activate their iPhone 2 with some idiot ATT sales rep working the whole thing. This is going to take forever and Apple is going to have a lot of very upset customers. Very BIG mistake by Apple to go this route, just unlock the phones and let people use them on any carrier they wish. Talk about becoming like Microsoft, Apple is nailing it on the head!

Not only has apple taken a MSFT approach but as I have posted before, gave their real PRO USER FAN base the snub.

Let me illustrate:

On a macbook, you could never, EVER play a game on it.
With me so far? But open_gl went from 71% to 171% in Leopard and with each new release. Still, APPLE found out that BAREFEATS.COM was reporting you could run MOTION and quite well, so, what does APPLE do? Instead of rewarding it's miniscule fan base of less than <.01 percent (PRO vs ipod/iphone purchaser's) they release a cripple wear X300 which brings OPENGL back down to 70% affecting only the PRO user, not gamer, remember, you could never play a game on it anyway.

Apple then made sure that unlike times past, the iMAC was GLOSSY and SHINY which of course means NO GRAPHIC work for the PRO.

They then made sure that the MACBOOK and IMAC both had cheap firewire chip-set's and switched from Texas Instruments (STANDARD) to a sub par chip-set which results in drop outs, poor audio, bad video work, again, forcing any pro user to go MBP or MAC PRO.

Yeah, Apple has done a MSFT alright and I love how it's hidden so well. Now, .MAC is gone for more of a windows experience (MOBILEME, are you kidding), Computer is dropped from the name APPLE, MAC is dropped from the name SPECIALIST (yeah, at minimum wage, I'm sure they are) and are tailoring everything to be a "be all" for everyone while taking a dump on those who got them to where they are. The artists, the painter, the graphic designer, composer, editor. Amazing. Now they are dumping on the American people who if do not read their contract carefully, will be paying quite a bit per month for a phone that IS NOT CHEAPER but more expensive. This is something APPLE has always done. They have always MISLEAD with benchmarks, so why should we be surprised they lied about a cheap iPhone?

 

[.:R2theT]

As I said: Pure conjecture from you. It's frightening you can't even see that and in order to defend the conjecture you come up with even more elaborate conjecture.

I would have to say that it is conjecture on both our parts, seeing as neither of us is at the top of either of these companies. But I do believe that(conjecture that it is) Apple's intent was to make it's iPhone customers lives simpler, hence activation through iTunes. Now they are doing away with that. Is that because it didn't work or because there are some people who are using the iTunes activation process as a way to use the phones on other networks? I would say iTunes activation works just fine so it must be the latter. Why else would Apple change the policy? Why can't something logical be true? Do you think Apple just wants to piss people for no good reason? Apple wants, and I believe contractually needs, to have these iPhones bound to an ATT contract. In-store activation makes that much more likely.

And I am sorry that you feel frightened by my words. And I don't really feel like I am defending anything...just pointing out the obvious!

 

[Diatribe]

It would be like everyone who wants to use MS Windows has to get a Dell computer to use it...

(vomits...)

You mean just like everyone who wants OS X has to get a Macto use it...

Seriously though, I think this would be less of a problem if it were available in all countries, but the problem of the horrendous plan prices still applies. Monopolies are never good, not with Microsoft, not with Apple.

 

[mongoos150]

Don't forget the $39.99 for voice and $30 for the data for 1 month. Cancellation before 30 days = Return equipment

Is this a fact? What's stopping people from picking up a new iPhone 3G, signing a contract, and canceling the next day?

 

[GutBomb]

I see a lot of people asking "what if i just buy it with a prepaid credit card so they can't hit me with the penalty later."

It doesn;t work like that. When you go to stay at a hotel and pay with a credit card they put the entire amount of the stay, AND a small amount for incidentals on your card as an "authorization hold". Lets say the hotel room costs $50 a night, they will tack on an additional $25 per night (or some hotels, the entire cost of the room again) to cover things like phone calls and pay per view. At the end of your stay they turn that hold into a charge, and only charge for the amount you actually spent. As soon as that charge goes out of pending transactions the held amount that was not spent is released back into your account.

You can bet your ass that this is what apple is going to do for people who don't activate in-store. They will put an authorization hold for $600 (for the $300 phone) on your card and will turn that into a charge of $300 (and release the other $300 back to you) after 30 days if you have activated, or charge the whole $600.

This practice is done with airline tickets, hotels, device repairs... all sorts of things. Apple already does authorization holds on warranty repairs, so expect this to be used for the iphone 3g as well.

 

[donniedarko]

I bought a 1.0 phone, hacked, figured it out and then returned it loss of 35$...
I have an unlocked phone so when I elected to get an AT&T account there was no contract.

If I have to sign a contract I wont get a 2.0, but I wonder is if I get one via the Apple store does that entail or mean I assume a contract?

Also some of you might of noticed the FCC was having hearing on cancellation fees, and AT&T has restructured their deal with that.

If the deal is lame though, I'll be on a HTC Diamond 'Android' phone without blinking an eye. They release pretty soon.

 

[KaiMac]

Wall Street

Not only has apple taken a MSFT approach but as I have posted before, gave their real PRO USER FAN base the snub.

Let me illustrate:

On a macbook, you could never, EVER play a game on it.
With me so far? But open_gl went from 71% to 171% in Leopard and with each new release. Still, APPLE found out that BAREFEATS.COM was reporting you could run MOTION and quite well, so, what does APPLE do? Instead of rewarding it's miniscule fan base of less than <.01 percent (PRO vs ipod/iphone purchaser's) they release a cripple wear X300 which brings OPENGL back down to 70% affecting only the PRO user, not gamer, remember, you could never play a game on it anyway.

Apple then made sure that unlike times past, the iMAC was GLOSSY and SHINY which of course means NO GRAPHIC work for the PRO.

They then made sure that the MACBOOK and IMAC both had cheap firewire chip-set's and switched from Texas Instruments (STANDARD) to a sub par chip-set which results in drop outs, poor audio, bad video work, again, forcing any pro user to go MBP or MAC PRO.

Yeah, Apple has done a MSFT alright and I love how it's hidden so well. Now, .MAC is gone for more of a windows experience (MOBILEME, are you kidding), Computer is dropped from the name APPLE, MAC is dropped from the name SPECIALIST (yeah, at minimum wage, I'm sure they are) and are tailoring everything to be a "be all" for everyone while taking a dump on those who got them to where they are. The artists, the painter, the graphic designer, composer, editor. Amazing. Now they are dumping on the American people who if do not read their contract carefully, will be paying quite a bit per month for a phone that IS NOT CHEAPER but more expensive. This is something APPLE has always done. They have always MISLEAD with benchmarks, so why should we be surprised they lied about a cheap iPhone?

Once Wall Street fell in love with Apple Stock and Steve's rule the world with a socialist "our customers are dumb and need our help desperately" view of the consumer market, it was all over for Apple. Not only do we choose the best phone carrier for you, now we are going to take the phone out of your hand as soon as you buy it and actually activate it for you. Just sign here.........or do you need help with that as well Mr. Idiot Consumer.

Applebama is here!

 

[riversky]

I see a lot of people asking "what if i just buy it with a prepaid credit card so they can't hit me with the penalty later."

It doesn;t work like that. When you go to stay at a hotel and pay with a credit card they put the entire amount of the stay, AND a small amount for incidentals on your card as an "authorization hold". Lets say the hotel room costs $50 a night, they will tack on an additional $25 per night (or some hotels, the entire cost of the room again) to cover things like phone calls and pay per view. At the end of your stay they turn that hold into a charge, and only charge for the amount you actually spent. As soon as that charge goes out of pending transactions the held amount that was not spent is released back into your account.

You can bet your ass that this is what apple is going to do for people who don't activate in-store. They will put an authorization hold for $600 (for the $300 phone) on your card and will turn that into a charge of $300 (and release the other $300 back to you) after 30 days if you have activated, or charge the whole $600.

This practice is done with airline tickets, hotels, device repairs... all sorts of things. Apple already does authorization holds on warranty repairs, so expect this to be used for the iphone 3g as well.

That is exactly right!!

In fact when I called at&t about a pay-you-go option, even with a higher price for the phone they said NO, it will require a two year contract. Then when I asked for a supervisor he repeated the same thing but said the only thing they might do (not decided yet according to him) is for people with bad credit charge a deposit ($500) or so and return it after the two years are up.

 

[GutBomb]

Once Wall Street fell in love with Apple Stock and Steve's rule the world with a socialist "our customers are dumb and need our help desperately" view of the consumer market, it was all over for Apple. Not only do we choose the best phone carrier for you, now we are going to take the phone out of your hand as soon as you buy it and actually activate it for you. Just sign here.........or do you need help with that as well Mr. Idiot Consumer.

Applebama is here!

God election years sure bring out the stupid. why does every conversation have to involve the presidential candidates?

Anyway, it's very rare to buy ANY cell phone and not have it activated in store. The iPhone was the exception, and it was deemed to be impractical to do it that way, so they've decided to go with the cell phone flow and do it like everyone else. And Apple has not decided what phone company is going to work best for you because they think you can't decide for yourself. They decided on exclusivity with AT&T because it made financial sense for them to do so.

I just hope more people think like you because it means there will be a much shorter line for me to wait in on July 11th.

 

[KaiMac]

God election years sure bring out the stupid.

Anyway, it's very rare to buy ANY cell phone and not have it activated in store. The iPhone was the exception, and it was deemed to be impractical to do it that way, so they've decided to go with the cell phone flow and do it like everyone else. And Apple has not decided what phone company is going to work best for you because they think you can't decide for yourself. They decided on exclusivity with AT&T because it made financial sense for them to do so.

I just hope more people think like you because it means there will be a much shorter line for me to wait in on July 11th.

Don't worry, the line will be plenty long on July 11th as all the ATTpple employees wonder how to get your phone activated and where you need to sign the contract in the store.....have fun. I bet the ATTpple employees had no idea they were going to be cell phone activation geniuses when they took this gig. I bet it takes them 10-15 minutes per iPhone2 to get it sold and activated and out the door.

 

[BuffaloTF]

I see a lot of people asking "what if i just buy it with a prepaid credit card so they can't hit me with the penalty later."

It doesn;t work like that. When you go to stay at a hotel and pay with a credit card they put the entire amount of the stay, AND a small amount for incidentals on your card as an "authorization hold". Lets say the hotel room costs $50 a night, they will tack on an additional $25 per night (or some hotels, the entire cost of the room again) to cover things like phone calls and pay per view. At the end of your stay they turn that hold into a charge, and only charge for the amount you actually spent. As soon as that charge goes out of pending transactions the held amount that was not spent is released back into your account.

You can bet your ass that this is what apple is going to do for people who don't activate in-store. They will put an authorization hold for $600 (for the $300 phone) on your card and will turn that into a charge of $300 (and release the other $300 back to you) after 30 days if you have activated, or charge the whole $600.

This practice is done with airline tickets, hotels, device repairs... all sorts of things. Apple already does authorization holds on warranty repairs, so expect this to be used for the iphone 3g as well.

Based on the merchant code that Apple and AT&T are... iTunes being MCC 5735, for instance... you can only leave an amount in A (authorized) status for up to 3 business days MAX to Match the item to complete it with their funds on hold. After which the authorization status changes to E (expired) and all funds are released back into the account/credit line. The transaction can still be placed into M (Matched) status and collected for up to 4 months from date of original authorization, but since the original authorization has since expired, they may collect on NSF/insufficient credit..... but merchant purchases are guaranteed by the debit/credit card issuer, so they may be the ones on the hook here instead of the owner of the card.

Hotel rooms swipe your card and get the maximum 3 business days to match, if you're staying for longer, they may only authorize $1 to ensure its an open account, like how gas stations work with cards... and use that authorization to collect on services rendered in a greater amount if necessary within that 4 month window.... but they certainly can not hold funds for longer than the 3 business days mentioned. You'd run into interest earned losses on peoples accounts using debit cards, and interest accrued on peoples credit cards should they be longer than that.

 

[GregorBehr]

The "Exclusive Handset" thing is very prevalent here in the US, and now with the iPhone, they want to carry that all over the world - except for the countries that have laws against it.

So much for freedom...

I had a couple of bad experiences with Cingular (back then) so I refuse to give them my business.

It would be like everyone who wants to use MS Windows has to get a Dell computer to use it...

(vomits...)

Imagine if you had to use just a Mac to run OS X....

 

[czarthp]

this sucks, I was gonna use my mom SS# to get mine so I don't owe a deposit and she is 500 miles away, now I gotta come up with plan B

 

[Stately]

Don't worry, the line will be plenty long on July 11th as all the ATTpple employees wonder how to get your phone activated and where you need to sign the contract in the store.....have fun. I bet the ATTpple employees had no idea they were going to be cell phone activation geniuses when they took this gig. I bet it takes them 10-15 minutes per iPhone2 to get it sold and activated and out the door.

Well that's on AT&T now huh? Shoulda' stuck with Apple's beautiful innovative ways, then there would be no headaches on anyones part. Doesn't matter though cause I'll never be walking down the street holding that giant tic tac to my head.

 

[Tankgunk]

The "Exclusive Handset" thing is very prevalent here in the US, and now with the iPhone, they want to carry that all over the world - except for the countries that have laws against it.

So much for freedom...

I had a couple of bad experiences with Cingular (back then) so I refuse to give them my business.

It would be like everyone who wants to use MS Windows has to get a Dell computer to use it...

(vomits...)

So much for analogies...

 

[mongoos150]

Theoretically, people can purchase the phone in-store, activate it, and simply cancel their account once they get home. If people cancel within 30 days, the ETF should not apply. I did this with an iPhone I purchased in the AT&T store, 4 days after I activated it (switched to T-Mobile). You're out $35 for activation, maybe a bit more for some minor usage, that's it.

Unless something has changed with the iPhone 3G. I HIGHLY doubt there would be any kind of IMEI blacklisting.

 

[KaiMac]

Theoretically, people can purchase the phone in-store, activate it, and simply cancel their account once they get home. If people cancel within 30 days, the ETF should not apply. I did this with an iPhone I purchased in the AT&T store, 4 days after I activated it (switched to T-Mobile). You're out $35 for activation, maybe a bit more for some minor usage, that's it.

Unless something has changed with the iPhone 3G. I HIGHLY doubt there would be any kind of IMEI blacklisting.

This will only be possible if ATTpple has not found a way to block this through hardware. If this is possible, I will be doing it.

From the ATT Service Contract:

If phone is returned within 14 days in like-new condition with all components, early termination fee will be waived. Service may be cancelled after 14 days but within 30 days and early termination fee will be waived, but equipment may not be returned.

Link: http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/articles-resources/iphone-terms.jsp

I highly doubt that ATTpple hasn't closed this loop hole on the new hardware.

 

[.:R2theT]

They decided on exclusivity with AT&T because it made financial sense for them to do so.

And function. Don't forget visual voicemail. This feature wouldn't work without the arrangements that ATT and Apple made together after they agreed on an exclusive arrangement.

 

[mongoos150]

This will only be possible if ATTpple has not found a way to block this through hardware. If this is possible, I will be doing it.

I just can't see a hardware solution to somehow lock the device to AT&T. People have legitimate reasons for using a non-AT&T sim (traveling abroad, for instance). Unfortunately, just as with the first iPhone launch, we won't have solid answers until reports start floating in from early adopters.