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AT&T and Apple Tightening Policies to Reduce iPhone Unlocking

Plutonius said:
If people didn't unlock and instead used the iPhone on AT&T (US only), this wouldn't have happened. As with most things in life, the honest people are being hurt because of the actions of dishonest people.
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Word. How true, how true. Meanwhile we now have a lesser grade CHEAPO plastic phone. One must wonder if the NANO patient phone and maybe higher end phones might be in the works.

So much for Apple being innovative. Its now a consumer telcom company. Plastic? Are you kidding? Monitors $1799 for ancient technology. No focus on mac hardware yesterday. Only refreshes are CPU updates? Oh and LEOPARD and this so called small footprint is to get everyone ready for the MACS being portable, tablets, iPhone, desktops except really high end, are no longer apple's main objective. Apple's objective is to have the net portable and in the hands of everyone. No more being special being an apple user. Heck, maybe Microsoft can pull off Windows 7 as being great (google Sun's Looking Glass) and you will see a 3D OS that was dated 2003, so don't give me the innovative speech. Sun had it a long time before Apple.
 
mongoos150 said:
O2 is already advertising a Pay-As-You-Go iPhone 3G, but there aren't prices available yet. When the prices ARE released, I'm sure they will be over the $199/299 prices in the US. How can SJ claim prices won't levitate?
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Personally I think he meant iPhone will be no more than 199/299 of the local currency, I found out that UK O2 subscribers to £40+ contracts get a free upgrade and also get to keep iPhone v1 (Well pass to a family member).
 
zync said:
This is spot on. I think Obama can be that kind of President. He doesn't seem to bow to pressure. Hopefully he stays that way and gets elected. It would be the first time since Clinton that I could respect the President again and actually listen to the State of the Union without wanting to shove a pencil in my ears.
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Right on!!!! I heard that if Obama is elected, there is free iPhone in every pot! Plus you can pick any carrier and there will be no usage fees of anykind! I can't wait!!! Stick it to the man and power to the people!!!!!
 
northy124 said:
Personally I think he meant iPhone will be no more than 199/299 of the local currency.
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Ah, yes. Thank you, that'll be 200 Swedish Kroner, please (look it up, how many dollars that is), or even worse, 200 roubles (in russia i.e. the equivalent to US$ 8.5).

Seriously, noone sells stuff like "Ooh, I so much like the figure 1000. So no matter where in the world you are, you will pay 1000 [insert local currency]".
 
Tosser said:
Ah, yes. Thank you, that'll be 200 Swedish Kroner, please (look it up, how many dollars that is), or even worse, 200 roubles (in russia i.e. the equivalent to US$ 8.5).

Seriously, noone sells stuff like "Ooh, I so much like the figure 1000. So no matter where in the world you are, you will pay 1000 [insert local currency]".
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It's odd, apparently in Canada it will be the same as the US price ($199, $299) when generally we pay slightly more.
 
DeathChill said:
It's odd, apparently in Canada it will be the same as the US price ($199, $299) when generally we pay slightly more.
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yup, but that doesn't translate into "we'll sell it everywhere at the pricepoint of 199/299 Euro, US$, AUS$, roubles, danish/swedish/norwegian kroner, rupee, rial, rand and forinth.
:p
 
cazlar said:
Getting way offtopic, but having moved from Sydney to LA, and used public transport in both, I'll have to disagree. Sydney has some problems but has generally decent public transport (unless you live far out west or the north shore, where it just doesn't exist). If you live in the inner west for instance, you've got great buses and some train options depending on where you are going. They might be full, and likely very late, but you will probably get where you are going in an acceptable time (ie roughly the same as if you had driven, plus some waiting time).

LA on the other hand has really crappy public transport. The Metro trains are OK (good even), but apart from Hollywood and Pasadena, they don't seem to actually go anywhere useful (as far as I can tell). And the buses, while covering most of the city, are horrendously slow. I'm not sure why, I think it is because they seem to have a stop every 10m (people must be too lazy to walk far!). Before I bought my car, I was travelling on either 1 or 2 buses to go ~10-15 miles, and either way it took 1hr+!!!! When driving, I take the same trip on a freeway and it takes 15 minutes or so.
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Thank you! :D

I live in Los Angeles from New England and the public transportation is a joke. Even the trains move terribly slow and you're right about the slowness of busses. In New England, I think it was 1/4 of a mile, here its every other block plus if they are ahead of schedule, they have to slow down. They are actually monitored by a satillite system that tells them so.

Its pathetic and now we have two (me and you) confirming this - I think its also safe to say that unlike New England (Boston) or NY, this is NOT a business class but a different class all together, thus it not being used. Even if it was, it involves to many buses. I remember when I first got here - I took a bus from Burbank to Hollywood, yeah, okay, it involved 3 busses and took more than 1.3 hours to go what would take 15 minutes by car. Yeah, that's a success. :confused:
 
^^ I live in LA too (Miracle Mile) - public transit stinks in this city. American public transit is by and large atrocious compared to most major European cities, having spent time using the systems in Berlin, Paris, London, Stockholm and Holland. Now let's get back on topic. :D
 
ddTaylor said:
OK - for what it is worth...

I

As for Apple...they were actually less help that AT&T. I asked two basic questions. 1) - Can I get the iPhone on-line from Apple direct and 2) - what is the price if I did that.

I was at first told that the iPhone WOULD be available for on-line ordering from Apple.com starting July 11th and if I did not decide to active the phone and use it with my existing iPhone SIM card that Apple did not care (direct quote) as I purchased the phone and it was mine to do with what I wanted. I had the nice young lady DOUBLE-CHECK that and guess what? She was wrong on both counts. No on-line iPhone 2 ordering now or in the near future and the phone will simply NOT WORK without activation - including the applications such as iPod, Wi-Fi and other built-ins. Without activation the phone will not work. Given the track-record on my previous two questions I am a little dubious as to that reply.

D
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What did you expect? Apple employee's aren't what they used to be, underpaid, misinformed, high turn around, high school mentality of what a apple store employee used to be. Go into a apple store and ask. No commissions, no health insurance, terrible pay, they can't sit, can't lean, have to be forward facing the store, 85% are part time, no dental, some don't even own macs, they have to sell .MAC and Apple Care or they never move up, a far cry from the Apple person pre iPhone. Completely different set of skills these days and the turn over is so high, you would be lucky to find the same person in 2 months.

But they do get great discounts. Too bad the pay is so low they can't buy anything except maybe a shuffle. With all the hoop la on the negative iPhone, I would love to see a story done by WIRED or someone similar. Apple making a fortune yet their employee's at the retail level, are treated next to dirt.
 
mongoos150 said:
O2 is already advertising a Pay-As-You-Go iPhone 3G, but there aren't prices available yet. When the prices ARE released, I'm sure they will be over the $199/299 prices in the US. How can SJ claim prices won't levitate?
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I was told (by Apple) that those WOULD be the prices in the UK even if you opted for the PAYGO option.

Time will tell...if so, I am buying that phone for use here...and YES it can be done as Apple SAID I could use my US SIM card in the UK iPhone in the states. that may be wrong - but again...time will tell.

D
 
Hi all, new to the forums! Long time visitor, finally registered, lol! Anyways, as far as the iPhone 3g, i have no need for 1 since i would want it unlocked for T-Mobile anyhow! Plus $30 per-month for 3G...? I don't even pay that for high speed internet at home! I figured apple would've introduced a higher capacity model but they didn't? But, I am in the market for a 1st Gen 16 gig. IPhone that's new, if anyone knows a good place to get 1, email me please! Sorry for the long post!
 
So let me get this straight. You can wait in line for hours, then wait longer for the Apple store employee to activate your phone, then have no 100% refund policy because it was an open box when your purchased it.
 
For people that travel a lot or live in different countries during different parts of the year it is a necessity to have unlocked phones with pay as you go options.

Just imagine paying $299.00 x 2 + $160.00 per month for two years in order to use your PHONES in different countries assuming you only travel to two different ones.
 
Fluffy Bunny said:
You also add: "That is why many countries don't let companies get away with tactics that go beyond what is FAIR." There is a word for that, it's called socialism. The U.S. is a capitalist society, people have a right to vote with their wallet. I don't want the government telling me or a business what to do.

There is competition is the wireless market, huge competition. You have multiple carriers & equipment to choose from. You don't like one, feel free to go to another. Or better yet, start up your own wireless service and phone manufacturer company. Then you can go ahead and give your product away for free since it would make people happy.
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If i remember correctly from my economics classes, perfect competition involves having so many companies competing in an industry that no single company (or consumer) can influence price of a product or service by adjusting the supply/demand.

Take a look at http://www.wirelessadvisor.com/ and you'll see that most American cities have around 5-10 wireless providers, of which many also compete against each other on a global scale. That's not a lot of competition at all, certainly not enough for you to "vote with your wallet" to get good deals. These companies know that it's to the entire industry's benefit to keep prices higher versus engaging in excessive price wars with their relatively few competitors. Cell phones have become a near-necessity in this modern world, with few substitutes that cell phone carriers don't already also control (i.e. public wi-fi for instance to use VoIP, land lines) therefore you are not likely to stop using your cell phone anytime soon and you're stuck having to pay one out of the 5-10 providers in your area.

Where's the "huge competition" in that?

Starting your own wireless company? Well, good luck raising the capital on that one! No single person could do that alone without rich friends wanting to become richer if you have a good business idea (and therefore no longer possible to "give the service away for free")
 
someone told me that when the last iphone came out she bought it from an at&t store activated it there came home and cancelled her subscribtion for 35 dollars, she kept the phone and then unlocked it, could this be a possibility for a 3G iPhone?
 
hiimamac said:
UPDATE:

Yahoo reporting (FRONT PAGE) iPhone NOT really cheaper.

Looks like maybe we have some wiggle room before the release date. Its about time. People are fummed, hopefully Job's finally gets busted as the phoney benchmarks he used to tout pre intel where only noticed by a small % of people, whereas this is a HUGE consumer fraud statement.

http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/94465

http://img505.imageshack.us/my.php?image=yahooel9.png
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That's not really true though is it?
ATT putting an extra $10 on the data plan is not making the iPhone more expensive. Apple has not done this, it's down to ATT. This can be shown by the UK prices, where the tariffs are the same amount as before, with the addition of an extra wifi carrier.

Those articles are a bit sensationalist really.
 
alideman said:
someone told me that when the last iphone came out she bought it from an at&t store activated it there came home and cancelled her subscribtion for 35 dollars, she kept the phone and then unlocked it, could this be a possibility for a 3G iPhone?
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someone posted earlier that this wouldn't be possible because the iPhone is subsidized, so the phone itself needs to be returned in order to cancel your contract. The first iPhone wasn't subsidized, so you didn't have to return the phone upon cancellation because you paid full price for it.
 
DrAtheist said:
That's not really true though is it?
ATT putting an extra $10 on the data plan is not making the iPhone more expensive. Apple has not done this, it's down to ATT. This can be shown by the UK prices, where the tariffs are the same amount as before, with the addition of an extra wifi carrier.

Those articles are a bit sensationalist really.
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I full heartily agree. I have ATT, i actually like ATT for my area. But this is their pricing policy and really has nothing to do with Apple.
 
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