Whiners stop whining. Apple and AT&T don't have to disable the iPhone so you can't endrun it by not syncing to iTunes. A two year contract is required to use it. You agree to the terms. It says that updates and upgrades may be required to continue to use iPhone. Again, updates and upgrades may be required to continue to use iPhone. If you don't continue to sync, you'll lose out on what will prove to be an essential update/upgrade. It's reasonable. And smart.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iPhone as a Widescreen iPod + Wifi without Contract?
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Whiners stop whining. Apple and AT&T don't have to disable the iPhone so you can't endrun it by not syncing to iTunes. A two year contract is required to use it. You agree to the terms. It says that updates and upgrades may be required to continue to use iPhone. Again, updates and upgrades may be required to continue to use iPhone. If you don't continue to sync, you'll lose out on what will prove to be an essential update/upgrade. It's reasonable. And smart.
Dude...****! Thats not what I asked. I didn't asked to be lectured! I asked where the EULA is. If you don't want to help then don't post.
Per John Gruber, in turn per Alex King, all this nonsense involving faked SSNs is completely unnecessary.
So, buy your iPhone, activate it, and then immediately cancel your contract during AT&T's "buyer's remorse" period. Tell them you can't get a signal in your bedroom if you need an excuse, and you're absolutely desperate to lie having been deprived of the chance to pretend your SSN is a sequence of 9s.
So, buy your iPhone, activate it, and then immediately cancel your contract during AT&T's "buyer's remorse" period. Tell them you can't get a signal in your bedroom if you need an excuse, and you're absolutely desperate to lie having been deprived of the chance to pretend your SSN is a sequence of 9s.
Look. All this "nonsense" of faked SSNs is THE WHOLE POINT for some people: they don't want to give such a key personal identifier to Apple or AT&T.
Now, however, giving fake SSNs has been superceded by Jon's activation method, which saves you the trouble of going through the sign-up process, of going through the cancelation process and of giving anybody any SSN, fake or real - you just hand over your $599, bring it home and activate it yourself. Simple.
Not to get too far into "it depends on what 'is' is" country, it's only an antitrust violation if it's an antitrust violation. Or, to put it another way, it may be abusive, monopolistic, overreaching, greedy unfair and generally no fun for those who want it otherwise, but I'm fairly certain that the aapl and T legal teams structured the entire deal so that while close, it is not an antitrust violation (which I've suspected from the day aapl announced its accounting method).
mklos
Sorry about the bad quote/editing on my part. It really wasn't intended to be directed at you. You are 100% correct. All you asked for was a citation.
I understand your point, but disagree; the legal teams structuring the deal are the last ones I would entrust to ensure there are no antitrust violations. It seems to me that the companies have decided that this endeavor is worth the legal risk. That's a business decision that seems justified. But, in my opinion, they are on very thin ice w/r/t antitrust issues if AAPL disables a product purchased at full retail if the consumer does not also purchased a tied-in contract for services from AT&T.
I dont intend on canceling my account. I just didn't want to be tied to a contract. That was if it didn't work I could easily just cancel it. I had no intentions of just using the iPhone for iPod/WiFI only use. It seems to work where I didn't think it would, but I may be roaming. The phone doesn't tell you when you're roaming apparently.
As I said, for antitrust reasons I don't think they'll disable it, per se. You can buy it, activate it, drop service, and have a functioning device for other things, for a while. However, I seriously doubt an antitrust attack would prevail if a device which is advertised as requiring updates and upgrades to continue to work properly fails to work properly for those who don't take advantage of those updates and upgrades (because they dropped service).
It is not a anti-trust violation if all terms of use are presented at purchase. The phone is clearly advertized as a ATT exclusive with terms of "use". In order to claim anti-trust you would have to prove that this relationship undermines the original value/purchase proposition.
What are you relying on for the above proposition? I'd be curious to see your source (not flaming, btw). The elements required to prove an illegal tying claim are: (1) the existence of two separate products or services; (2) the sale or agreement to sell one product or service that is conditioned on the purchase of another; (3) the seller's sufficient economic power in the market for the tying product to enable it to restrain trade in the market for the tied product; and (4) a not insubstantial amount of interstate commerce in the tied product is affected. Regardless of whether or not the terms are disclosed, illegal tying is illegal tying no matter how you cut it. A lawsuit regarding tying was tossed a few years ago, but the iPhone presents a different situation potentially ripe for revisiting.
Neither AT&T nor Apple have anything close to a monopoly on anything other than their version of their products. Unless and until that changes, it's highly improbable anyone will go after them on anti-trust grounds.
As far as getting an untied iPod+Safari combo, the advice still stands: either cancel the contract as soon as you agree to it, as per AT&T's terms, or wait (which is better) for the iPods that Steve Jobs has implied are forthcoming that will be running OS X, and see whether or not these iPods have the functionality you're looking for.
Post #189 is just plain wrong, unless I was asleep that semester. The above is fairly accurate, but I still contend that AAPL/T in all liklihood followed the roadmap and structured it in such a way that there are no antitrust violations. It would be an interesting analysis to read, however.
True re AT&T. Arguably not re the iPhone. As usual, it would all depend on how one defines the relevant market. If this thing succeeds as predicted, AAPL likely will have sufficient market power to restrain trade.
Perhaps, but let's also remember that the antitrust issues often get, er, a bit glossed over during such transactions.
AT&T is very wise to the 999-99-9999 Hack already
I tried to activate an iPhone using the "fake bad credit" hack identified here to get a pre-paid plan, and AT&T caught the ruse right away and sent a message saying to call them.
The only know correct way to get "offered" the option of a pre-paid plan is:
1. To enter your true ss#, and actually fail the credit check. Ha, I did. But paradoxically that get's me a pre-paid plan with no 2 year committment. This is good.
2. AT&T will then send you an email that offers you the GoPhone Plan. You connect your iPhone and are then walked through setting up the prepaid plan.
3. It took a few hours for AT&T to get my new number reported back to me so when I connected the phone again in several hours there was my new phone number.
4. After you get the new number, you are given the opportunity to provide debit and credit card info and enter funds into the account.
5. By the way, the prepaid plan has unlimited data plan too. But you have to pay extra for SMS messages.
I tried to activate an iPhone using the "fake bad credit" hack identified here to get a pre-paid plan, and AT&T caught the ruse right away and sent a message saying to call them.
The only know correct way to get "offered" the option of a pre-paid plan is:
1. To enter your true ss#, and actually fail the credit check. Ha, I did. But paradoxically that get's me a pre-paid plan with no 2 year committment. This is good.
2. AT&T will then send you an email that offers you the GoPhone Plan. You connect your iPhone and are then walked through setting up the prepaid plan.
3. It took a few hours for AT&T to get my new number reported back to me so when I connected the phone again in several hours there was my new phone number.
4. After you get the new number, you are given the opportunity to provide debit and credit card info and enter funds into the account.
5. By the way, the prepaid plan has unlimited data plan too. But you have to pay extra for SMS messages.
