I don't see how 999 euro is not a reasonable price at all.
Some French supermarket sold out their grey market hacked up unauthorized unlocked iphones without a valid apple warranty --- for 999 euro.
I would think that the carriers should be able to charge 1200 euro for a properly unlocked iphone with geniune apple warranty.
The point is that they are tasked with providing the hardware
without the contract and merely tacking the lost cost of the contract onto the hardware to achieve that is not really the same thing.
It's actually a very transparent and unethical dodge.
AFAIK the law says that they are supposed to be providing the customers with a
choice of buying with the contract or without. If the choice is between the item, and the item with a huge arbitrary fee attached that is equivalent to the contract, then they are not really providing a choice. I think a lawyer could successfully argue that this is not really a choice at all and thus fails to meet the intent of the law.
To justify the higher price legally (IANAL), it seems to me that they have to prove that the iPhone was subsidised in the first place (it clearly isn't), and that the higher price is the "real" price. Alternatively they could sell it at the retail cost of the hardware, plus any other fees they incur to "disconnect" the contract for the customer. These costs are arguably very minimal if they exist at all.
Another possible loophole could be that (as you mention) Apple themselves might try to argue that the added cost is the cost of the Warranty given the "new situation" of being unlocked. Again however, this is transparent bull at best. Also, if they try that tactic then that puts Apple itself firmly on the hook of any lawyer that wants to test this and becomes a PR nightmare.
This is a very dicey situation PR wise. Right now, people are going to blame Deutsche Telecom for this even though Apple likely had a lot to do with the pricing decision. If it should happen that people start seeing Apple as literally
stealing an extra few hundred Euros out of their pocket, this could all get rather ugly real fast. These kinds of things snowball really fast in our age of information. It's not impossible that we might see iPhone bonfires if the public gets it's dander up. IMO
Apple is insane not to basically "give in" to unlocked iPhones at this point as they begin to assume the shape of pure evil otherwise.
Being an Apple user and supporter from the very start, personally I am
really disappointed at their response to this situation. Remember when the iPhone came out and everyone thought that
"Apple would like to let it be open but AT&T is forcing them to keep it locked"? Clearly that wasn't true. Apple seems to be very
deeply involved in doing almost
anything they can to stop unlocked iPhones, seemingly
for the money alone.
That is terribly significant IMO. The only rational interpretation is that Apple is
purposely and deliberately behaving in a very anti-consumer way here, out of pure greed. When you add to that realisation the fact that Apple is basically sitting on a mountain of cash right now already ...
Well it doesn't look good at all does it?
Boo-Hiss for Apple from me. Giving in to pure unadulterated greed is hardly "thinking different."
