Those breakdowns really don't express the true cost of a product. While the actual components might cost $250, that doesn't take into account customer service under warranty, the 100s of millions of dollars of R&D put into the phone, they price they pay the manufacturers to actually assemble the product, the packaging, shipping....etc...
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That's right.
But it applies to all other phones as well. I can get a N95 for 499 Eur. unlocked w/o contract, half the price of the Apple one. Sure, that does not have to coolness of an iPhone, but it does have HSDPA, GPS and a better camera. Nokia has to pay r&d as well.
It has been usual to pay a premium for choosing a mac over something else, but in this case its a lot.
Christian
It also appears that some people at least are willing to pay the premium in advance to own an iphone rather than pay it over the course of 18 months via their phone bills like everyone else (illegal unlockers aside of course). Ultimately every "legal" iphone owner will end up paying roughly the same premium to Apple to own an iPhone.
Perfectly 'legal' to unlock your phone.
Most unlocked smartphones are generally pretty expensive, £300-400 here in the UK anyway.
I realise removing IMEI numbers will cause problems, but presumably they're only needed once to actually unlock the phone. I suppose it's possible that the phone is tested each time a new sync occurs, and relocked if there's no match.
I remember MR did a breakdown of the cost of parts in the iPhone, and it totaled to somewhere around $250. They're making almost $1250 in profit here! That price of 999 was clearly set just so people wouldn't buy it.
So does anyone think Apple is tracking IMEI numbers so that unlocked phones don't end up stateside without AT&T? My friend has T-mobile here and doesn't want to switch, but does want an iPhone? Would it be illegal for him to bring a phone back form europe and use it here with T-mobile, of course without the Visual Voicemail, ect?
-Brian
It's not high. What would you pay for an iPhone with a contract? About $1,800 I think. Work it out $60 per month for 24 months. Either you pay $1250 up front of $1,800 on installments over two years.
What Apple is trying to do here is teach people that phones are not free. You pay for them with grossly inflated monthly airtime charges that actually payoff the load on the phone. Yes the phone has only $250 worth the parts inside. But you have to also pay for the factory that assembles the parts, transportationa and the retail store that sells t. And what about all those engineers at Apple, they don't work cheap and there are many of them
Why wouldn't they allow it? It's unlocked. Once it's unlocked, you can put any SIM into it.
IMO, the price is ridiculous, a fully (or partially) unlocked iPhone at the same price as a MacBook >_<
The only good thing about this is that I really hope the iphone dev team will find out a way to unlock OOB 1.1.2 "using" this technique. I really wanna make some calls using my iPhone (which has been used as an expensive iTouch since lol)
Most unlocked smartphones are generally pretty expensive, £300-400 here in the UK anyway.
It would be really stupid to pay the $600 premium right now. The injunction won by vodafone against t-mobile-only-iphones also means that t-mobile has to unlock every iphone sold after Nov 19 if the customers wants it. For free, even those which sold for Euro 399. Get your iphone in Germany as long as it lasts.![]()
First, the original poster was wrong. 1398 euro = $2077 today. $2077 - $250 = $1820 (not $1250). Just about the $1800 you quoted. So, Apple and T-Mobile just want the same money they'd get off you with the long contract b.s.
Well, they have to unlock the phone, but I don't think that means they have to let you out of the contract you signed up for you when you bought it. You'll wind up paying more for the contract than the extra €600 to just get it unlocked without a contract.
...As far as the additional amount to be paid for unlocked iPhone (beyond that to Apple), the carrier was required to make up front expenditures to ready the network for the iPhone. Even advertising. Those costs need to be amortized/recovered over an expected number of iPhones to be sold/used on the network. No real profit until those costs recovered. The additional @$400 may sound extremely steep, but probably can be justified on paper, with a straight face, at this stage. That amount should decline as more are sold/activated, and costs are recovered.