Iphone: No Contract? No Iphone!

Well, you could of course but you would have to unlock it and why would you want to be paying for a monthly contract (for two years) that you are not going to use?

 

if it might not have occured to you it is highly illegal to do that

 

why is that illegal?
although it is stupid

 

In what way, AT&T would love people to give them money for nothing, there is nothing illegal about agreeing to pay $X to a company for 2 years for a service, then never using it, in the same way there is nothing illegal about using your iPhone on other carriers.

 

In the U.S.A. at least, that's not illegal.

 

Actually, I think it would be more like $375 ($199 iPhone + $175 cancellation fee) + fees for starting up your contract (I think? someone correct me on this) + your first months bill.

So you could be looking at between 400-500 at the least, possibly

 

Price of an unlocked 3G? Guaranteed to be ungodly.

 

Based on other threads around the forum: If you are planning to use the iPhone 3G in the USA with other carrier different from AT&T, assuming you "can" unlock it, the data connection via cellular network will not work in 3G, you'll be limited to EDGE.

Hopefully 2 things will happen sometime in the future:
- the good iPhone Developers community will find a way to unlock the iPhone 3G, the most bold ones will try to sell it via the App Store , and will find a workaround to use the App Store for enterprise and we could have a similar Installer/Cydia type of distribution channel.
- After the initial months of the iPhone 3G boom, the carriers, specially in Europe or even Apple may sell them without the carrier subsidized price, so you can buy paying it's "real market value".

And of course you will always have the alternative to buy from eBay, Craigslist, etc...

Just wait and see what happens...

Another alternative is to find a job that requires you to be always available and the company will assign you an iPhone 3G, so you don't have to worry about the contract....
________
Procar

 

Yeah, it's gonna be pretty tricky to actually get an unlocked 3G iPhone, seeing as how AT&T are requiring in-store activations at AT&T and Apple stores

 

At this point we don't know if there even IS going to be an unsubsidized iPhone... I think there probably will though, and we'll have to wait and see until July 11. The rumors are pointing at about $375/$475 -- be even still, they'll probably require to be activated in store... meaning that whoever is going to be able to get one out of a store unactivated will have the incentive to charge whatever they feel for it.

Also, at this point, we are not sure if the final version of the iPhone software 2.0 will be able to be unlocked (although, again, I'm sure it will), and if it will, it will take some time for that software to be out.

 

I'm sure there will be plenty of people in the UK willing to buy a PayG 3G iPhone, unlock it, and ship it to willing customers in the US. Probably only charge you something north of $800 for this wonderful service

 

I'll take 5!!

 

There will be no 'unlocked' price. There _may_ be a no-commit price (unsubsidised) down the road, but for now AT&T is saying there isn't one.