iPhone without Contract in Germany? - 999€ UPDATE: Confirmed + 600€ for an unlock!

[Sijmen]

I see. Thanks for the explanations.

 

[Texas04]

Well at least some country is putting their foot down as it should be. Hopefully all the other countries will take this and start implemmenting the same laws. It makes sense!!! The only thing I disagree with is the crazy prices!!! Charging all that money for an unlocked phone is ridiculous!!

 

[Sijmen]

If they wouldn't be allowed to sell the phone exclusively and locked at all in the first place, the unlocked price would be lower.

 

[gifford]

Designed by Apple in California,
Made in China

Now tell me how is there a higher personnel cost in Europe if Europeans on average have a lower GDP Per Capita / PPP?

Now is producing in China more expensive if they ship it to Europe instead of the USA? NO!

Is Designing in California more expensive if they ship it to Europe instead of the USA? NO!

Now apart from higher TAXes and tolls/duties I don't see why we should pay a premium and why it should be more expensive in Europe!

Even after calculating out the difference from Tax and Duties, we still pay a horrid premium.

Oh... And the iPhone... I really really dislike it... If I were you guys, I'd rather get an N95.

N95 vs. iPhoneis:
1) N95 is cheaper and just as nice looking
2) 5mp Camera vs. lousy 2mp camera
3) Flashlight photography
4) Symbian OS open to any coder vs. Closed propietary Apple OS
5) Battery Replaceable vs. pay a premium for a thing that needs to replaced after one or two years
6) has UMTS and can be used as a modem for laptops vs. slow, old, outdated EDGE/GPRS
7) No Provider or Simlock
8) No rip-off phone plans.
9) capable of all that multimedia stuff the iPhone isn't such as: Video Telephony, MMS, PTT, ...
10) It can do most of the things the iPhone can such as surfing the net and more, and in most cases better and more conveniently.

your wrong on every point, i give up on this forum. oh and the N95? i'd rather sleep in a ditch than buy that hideous monstrosity of a phone.
Please see my answer above for clarification on why most of your points are wrong.
PS: I manufacture/distribute my own electronic products, im VERY much aware of the expense incurred trying to do business in europe.



N95 vs. iPhoneis:
1) N95 is cheaper and just as nice looking (cheap second rate phone = cheap price || i would shove the n95 out of my bed for an iphone anyday)
2) 5mp Camera vs. lousy 2mp camera(MP just like the mhz myth, is used by the uneducated such as yourself to compare camera quality(though iphone should have been 3mp))
3) Flashlight photography (you mean a 'super bright' led strapped on, fairly useless in reality. not exactly a xenon flash is it!)
4) Symbian OS open to any coder vs. Closed propietary Apple OS (symbian isnt open source.but it is open to developers, just like the iphone will be in feb, and when it is, wait see what happens as the worlds most advanced OS gets used toits full potential)
5) Battery Replaceable vs. pay a premium for a thing that needs to replaced after one or two years (oh who cares, i have never had a phone for more than a year, even friends of mine on a minimum wage can get through 2 sometimes 3 phones a year. a battery dying a few years down the line makes no difference to me. I have NEVER had to replace a battery in my phone and I am a HEAVY user, my last bill for 1 month was £1500 or $3000(roaming mostly!))
6) has UMTS and can be used as a modem for laptops vs. slow, old, outdated EDGE/GPRS (very few people yet use fast phone connections to full potential because the phones are incapable of delivering a decent user experience, for phone calls and light surfing edge/gprs (and letss not forget wifi) is perfectly adequate. )
7) No Provider or Simlock
8) No rip-off phone plans. (says you)
9) capable of all that multimedia stuff the iPhone isn't such as: Video Telephony, MMS, PTT, ...(that nobody uses! ask any of the big carriers, they spent billions on 3g expecting everyone to start using videoconferencing etc, to date it was a complete waste of money)
10) It can do most of the things the iPhone can such as surfing the net and more, and in most cases better and more conveniently. (oh keep dreaming, surfing capabilitis are very second rate, better than most, but not even close to an iphone)

 

[samab]

You are absolutely wrong. When you BUY a property, you own everything in the home, all the land that home includes (the "lot"), as well as anything under the ground (but not the airspace above). Arrangements otherwise are rather uncommon and are ALWAYS accompanied by explicit definitions within the sales contract.

And this is how O2 is operating.

O2 is telling you that this iphone is unlocked, under no circumstances will they provide unlocking codes for you, and they will not provide you the unlocking codes even after your contract is over.

This is what the Ofcom's unlocking policy is --- as long as the carrier tell you explicitly that they are not going to ever provide unlocking codes to you --- then it is legal in UK.

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/4494270/

 

[winterspan]

ignorant and shortsighted comment

That I'm not some whiny user who "needs" an unlocked cell...seems like more hassle that it's worth.

Then again, AT&T Wireless in Chicago works perfectly fine...has great coverage, and the prices are very reasonable. I even dropped my previous carrier (TMobile) to go to them...but didn't pay a penny for that either since my contract was over...

Your comment is extremely shortsighted and ignorant of the situation.
Is it really that difficult to imagine a situation where an unlocked phone is necessary?

First of all, there are many regions and even some *ENTIRE* states that don't have coverage from AT&T. Just because you have good AT&T service in your area doesn't mean all regions are treated the same.

Also.. apparently, you are not one to travel out of the country often. If you were, you would be as outraged as I am at the exorbitant voice and data fees charged by carriers such as AT&T on international roaming!!! Data use can sometimes be avoided if you are in an area with a large density of Free WiFi hotspots, but the majority of wifi cafes charge for use.
Voice minutes are extremely expensive and even with their new "international data plan" of $50 for 50MB of data (which might do for maybe 1-3 days), overage is FIVE DOLLARS A MEGABYTE! That's $2.50 per page to read the New York times website!

All of this could easily be avoided by swapping out your SIM card for a cheap pre-paid SIM available in nearly every country in the world. Both voice minutes and data usage is much cheaper this way. If you routinely check email with attachments, surf the web, read RSS feeds, etc with your phone, be prepared to EASILY spend $75-$200 a week traveling out of the country.
Some people with moderate use have seen bills upwards of $1500 for a 10-day vacation.

Am I still whining?

 

[colonelbutt]

Having spent the last hour reading through almost 14 pages of posts, it seems clear that many respondents are simply talking past one another on a variety of issues such as competition in the market place, corporate greed, governmental regulation, divergent political systems etc. Others have gone out of their way to compare apples to oranges, thrown in red herrings to deflect or obfuscate the arguments of others or simply twist facts to support the "truthiness" of their own belief systems. Soviet Ministries indeed!

In the spirit of disclosure and in order to place my comments below in context, I am an American that adores Europe and who would gladly live the rest of his life in London, Paris or Berlin (three of my favorite cities!) if I were free of family obligations. That said, I am a firm believer in free markets operating under full and fair competition (as the least offensive economic system devised so far), but only so long judicious regulation said markets ensures that they remain full and fair.

The sale of the iPhone raises several different but interrelated questions. Should the IPhone be available as an unlocked, stand alone product similar to Apple's other products? Is it legal in jurisdiction X for Apple and its cell phone partner to sell its iPhone only as a locked product? In jurisdictions requiring some form of unlocking, can Apple (and/or its cell phone carrier partner) comply by offering an unlocked phone at a price close to the cost that a consumer would have incurred if the consumer had purchased the locked phone in combination with the carrier contract? Is Apple's heterodox profit sharing plan with cellular carriers a good thing for the market place and/or the consumer. Is Apple becoming the very sort of high handed, share holder driven, money-grubbing corporation that it attempts distinguish itself from (e.g., Microsoft, IBM, telcos, cable providers, etc.)? In other words, has Apple the company lost faith with the Mac users and does this bode ill to the in roads it is attempting to make in its core computer business as well as its burgeoning consumer electronics business?

Right off the bat, it seems to me prudent to lay to rest the debate about whether the iPhone is subsidized the the cell phone carriers or whether, in fact, Apple's price point is reasonable in view of the pricing of the iTouch iPod, which provides substantially the same hardware functionality minus the phone functions. This is not a trivial point as some have suggested because recent changes in laws in North America and Europe to allow SIM locking were rationalized by the carriers as a way for them to recoup subsidies that they provide on high end phones through customer retention. Samab and others have repeatedly pointed out that it is virtually impossible to determine this point objectively because of the way costs and investment accounting can be twisted. However none of this is really germane. Apple itself has stated to its shareholders on several occasions that it does not receive any PHONE subsidies from its carrier partners. In addition, Apple has priced its iTouch iPods similarly to its iPhone product, with the cost delta reasonably derived from the hardware/software differences between the two products. At least in the U.S., representations made to share holders have strict legal ramifications. It would be impossible therefore for Apple to report profits/write offs on the iPhone as subsidy income after making unequivocal public statements that the phone is in fact not subsidized. The importance of this point will become apparent in the discussion below regarding SIM locking as a way to recover handset subsidies by the telcos.

Should Apple sell the iPhone unlocked? Apple can of course do as it pleases, subject to local law. It seems clear on the evidence to date, however, that Apple's customer unfriendly stance of selling only locked phones was a calculated ploy to force its partners into "fee sharing" arrangements. I am completely unconvinced by the arguments of certain Apple apologists that the big bad telcos are "forcing" Apple to do this. If that were so, why hasn't Nokia, or any other phone manufacturer, been forced to offer its flagship products as single carrier lockins fro market to market.

Is it legal in jurisdiction X for Apple and its cell phone partner to sell its iPhone only as a locked product? This is fact fact the case in North America, and I have no reason to disbelieve Samab's assertion that this is fact fact the case in most European jurisdictions, save Belgium. In the case of Germany, however, I do not believe that T-Mobile's position is unassailable as some have suggested. In order to succeed in a motion for a preliminary injunction, one must show a likelihood of success on the merits at trial. In other words, those suing T-Mobile must have shown that their interpretation of the unlocking requirements under German law were correct and likely to succeed. I'm not sure that the failure of German regulators means anything notwithstanding Samab's assertion otherwise. In the U.S., court decisions based on law always trump regulatory findings, otherwise non elected regulatory officials would have no accountability.

In jurisdictions requiring some form of unlocking, can Apple (and/or its cell phone carrier partner) comply by offering an unlocked phone at a price close to the cost that a consumer would have incurred if the consumer had purchased the locked phone in combination with the carrier contract? Once again, this will be a matter specific to each particular jurisdiction. However, laws or regulations requiring unlocking would be worthless ab initio if the carrier could circumvent the spirit of the law by offering the "unlocked" product at a price similar to or the same as the locked product plus contract fees. Many of the most vocal supporters of carriers being allowed to force the consumer to buy a locked phone justify this on the basis of the carrier being able to provide consumers with subsidized high end phones. I'm not sure I see how the consumer benefits since she is locked into a long term contract that usually entails stiff penalties to break and which ultimately extract the cost of the non-subsidized phone from the consumer over the term of the contract. However, this simply isn't an argument one can make with the iPhone, since the iPhone by Apple's own admission is not subsidized. Apple's rationale for locking the phone is to provide a captive consumer pool to the carrier in order for Apple to extract revenue from the carrier. I see no consumer benefit here at all. Think Different indeed! In fact, I find Apple's actions here to be highly anti-consumer in that it sets a precedent for making the cell phone market more vertically integrated and proprietary over time, thereby reducing effective and fair competition. In effect the consumer ends up paying more for less choice in carrier and ultimately in the availability of fewer features and plans.

Is Apple becoming the very sort of high handed, share holder driven, money-grubbing corporation that it attempts distinguish itself from (e.g., Microsoft, IBM, telcos, cable providers, etc.)? In other words, has Apple the company lost faith with the Mac users and does this bode ill to the in roads it is attempting to make in its core computer business as well as its burgeoning consumer electronics business? Sadly, I think both preceding questions must be answered in the affirmative. I've been an Apple supporter since the late 1980's and whethered the derisive comments from friends and colleagues in the late 90's when everyone told me that I had bought into a "dead platform." I was over joyed to see the turn around in Apple's fortunes following the introduction of the iMac, iPod, iTunes and the rest. Of late, I've become dismayed by both Apple's attitude and actions as a company, from its smug advertising campaigns, to shoddy workmanship on some of its products (and its tendency to minimize its own missteps and blame its customers - discolored iBook palm rests or scratched iPod screens anyone?) But what troubles me the most is the growing sense of rapacious greed that seems to be pervading the company from accounting snafus designed to make the corporate elite even richer (say Steve, are enjoying those back date share options?). When a company values the exceedingly short term interests of its share holders more than its customer base, it is definitely heading down the wrong road. How many off us thought Apple would try and fleece its iPhone early adopters in such a blatant fashion.

In the end, you can enjoy the technology and try and spur the company on to do its best without having to be a cooky religious fanatic for ever apologizing or explaining away everything bad that Apple does. I think the iPhone is indeed a phenomenal product that will redefine the way people interact with their phones. That doesn't mean that I want to be ripped off as an early adopter; told I can't access and use the hardware that I've lawfully purchased by preventing its use as a hard disk or preventing the instalation of third party apps; nor do I want to be told that the only way I can have a precious iPhone is to sign up with Apple's annointed choice of cell phone carrier (IMHO the WORST carrier in the U.S.) so I can pay inflated rates from which Apple gets a substantial kick back. Apple shouldn't have to tax us through the back door to extract the profit it thinks it deserves from each phone. In a truly capitalistic, market driven system, Apple would charge up front what it thinks the phone is worth, let us use it as we want, and then let the chips fall where they may.
_______________________
PowerBook 1.0 GHZ G4, MacBook 2.0 GHZ, MacMini 1.66 GHZ, Intel iMac AluGlass 24 inch; 5 GB G1 iPod, 30 GB G5 iPod, iPod Touch 16 GB; Airport Extreme Gigabit Router

u r talking complete rubbish. apple is not your pet company and you are not its only customer and shareholder.

you could also have done the rant in a single paragraph.

 

[Archie-]

Read all 18. They demonstrate more than knowledge. There's advocacy. I say yep. And he's not the only newbie with suspect motives.

This thread is the reason I registered. I'm not the only one angered by Apple's determination to thwart the system. I cant believe people are defending Apple's moves as actually being good for the consumer. All the apologist's excuses have been debunked. The handset is not subsidized. The networks do not have to recover a huge cost. Updates are par for the course and normally free. The high prices are not due to the locale. The simlocking is not due to the networks, but due to Apple.

The only reason left is greed. And this is not the usual "maximizing share holder value" level of greed. This is rapacious greed, that will be remembered for years from now as the point when Apple jumped the shark.

 

[Elrond39]

Overanalyzed. Overwritten. Second year law student?

Full quote of a "overanalyzed [...] overwritten" post. Second year poster?

u r talking complete rubbish. apple is not your pet company and you are not its only customer and shareholder.

you could also have done the rant in a single paragraph.

You could also have critiqued it in a single sentence. And without the lengthy quote.

If the length and 'depth' of the post bother you, why quote the whole thing, exactly?

As for unlocked iPhones... well, it's all been said, hasn't it? Convenience when traveling, customer choice, etc. I don't think this will be the last time the debate heats up.

 

[weckart]

higher local tax, weak dollar, shipping, more red tape, products have to be tailored to each country and each country has a smaller population. it costs more on every turn, storage, tranport (fuel MUCH more expensive than states), i could go on forever........<snip>"

most people seem to think there is some great conspiracy, there isnt

Much of this is utterly irrelevant. Please do not labour under the misapprehension that everyone lives in his country's capital city. Those statistics you quote just do not apply to the majority of non-US Apple purchasers.

Furthermore, the statistics are skewed by property and local public transport prices, none of which impacts on courier transport, by which most Macbooks and the like are delivered. Check the price Amazon charges to ship across Europe - pennies.

There is no tailoring of Apple products for the UK market, save the keyboard. We have to put up with US spelling and punctuation conventions. Cost of adaptation - zip!

New York, is easily more expensive than most European locations, but Apple's products cost the same in NY as Peoria, before local taxes.

There is no conspiracy. Apple is taking advantage of the fall in the dollar. That is all. Some of its costs will of course rise, where not sourced in dollars. We should be grateful that prices have not gone up, I suppose.

 

[Bonte]

Now tell me how is there a higher personnel cost in Europe if Europeans on average have a lower GDP Per Capita / PPP?

It looks like the wealth in the EU is more spread out between the poor and rich, in the US apparently most of it goes to the multinationals.

I'm from Belgium. Minimum income here for low-paid workers is about 1000 euro NET ($1400), bruto cost for the companny has to be around 1800 euro per month (40 hours week) for minimum wages. That is to pay for the cleaning lady and canteen personnel (among others), transport and other labor is higher than this with the employee getting about 1/3 as net payment in hand. 2/3 is basically for tax, unemployment insurance and (almost) free healthcare and education.

We also have lower cost student workers etc (they don't pay tax) but the average work cost for a company like Apple is much higher in the EU. Slave work for $5 per hour is officially out of the question here and i'm proud of it.

 

[colonelbutt]

your wrong on every point, i give up on this forum. oh and the N95? i'd rather sleep in a ditch than buy that hideous monstrosity of a phone.
Please see my answer above for clarification on why most of your points are wrong.
PS: I manufacture/distribute my own electronic products, im VERY much aware of the expense incurred trying to do business in europe.



N95 vs. iPhoneis:
1) N95 is cheaper and just as nice looking (cheap second rate phone = cheap price || i would shove the n95 out of my bed for an iphone anyday)
2) 5mp Camera vs. lousy 2mp camera(MP just like the mhz myth, is used by the uneducated such as yourself to compare camera quality(though iphone should have been 3mp))
3) Flashlight photography (you mean a 'super bright' led strapped on, fairly useless in reality. not exactly a xenon flash is it!)
4) Symbian OS open to any coder vs. Closed propietary Apple OS (symbian isnt open source.but it is open to developers, just like the iphone will be in feb, and when it is, wait see what happens as the worlds most advanced OS gets used toits full potential)
5) Battery Replaceable vs. pay a premium for a thing that needs to replaced after one or two years (oh who cares, i have never had a phone for more than a year, even friends of mine on a minimum wage can get through 2 sometimes 3 phones a year. a battery dying a few years down the line makes no difference to me. I have NEVER had to replace a battery in my phone and I am a HEAVY user, my last bill for 1 month was £1500 or $3000(roaming mostly!))
6) has UMTS and can be used as a modem for laptops vs. slow, old, outdated EDGE/GPRS (very few people yet use fast phone connections to full potential because the phones are incapable of delivering a decent user experience, for phone calls and light surfing edge/gprs (and letss not forget wifi) is perfectly adequate. )
7) No Provider or Simlock
8) No rip-off phone plans. (says you)
9) capable of all that multimedia stuff the iPhone isn't such as: Video Telephony, MMS, PTT, ...(that nobody uses! ask any of the big carriers, they spent billions on 3g expecting everyone to start using videoconferencing etc, to date it was a complete waste of money)
10) It can do most of the things the iPhone can such as surfing the net and more, and in most cases better and more conveniently. (oh keep dreaming, surfing capabilitis are very second rate, better than most, but not even close to an iphone)

don't worry mate, you are spot on. its just that the people happy with their iphone are mostly not posting (except for me).

the N95 is a nice phone, sure. But its so primitive compared to the iphone. you have to have used the iphone for a few days to realise that. this argument will go on forever until all N95 customers actually use an iphone

the USP for me is 480x320 GLASS screen....

 

[Stella]

Read all 18. They demonstrate more than knowledge. There's advocacy. I say yep. And he's not the only newbie with suspect motives.

Your reading into things too much.

People are joining macrumours every day... just regular Mac users with a wide range of knowledge and backgrounds. It doesn't take a Nokia employee to have Nokia product knowledge.

 

[mccldwll]

This thread is the reason I registered. I'm not the only one angered by Apple's determination to thwart the system. I cant believe people are defending Apple's moves as actually being good for the consumer. All the apologist's excuses have been debunked. The handset is not subsidized. The networks do not have to recover a huge cost. Updates are par for the course and normally free. The high prices are not due to the locale. The simlocking is not due to the networks, but due to Apple.

The only reason left is greed. And this is not the usual "maximizing share holder value" level of greed. This is rapacious greed, that will be remembered for years from now as the point when Apple jumped the shark.

Apple is not trying to thwart the system. Apple is trying to break and remake the system, and the consumer will benefit. To say that "excuses have been "debunked" is narrow minded, myopic, "it's so because I say it's so" thinking. Upgrade costs do have to be recovered, additional payments which the carrier is contractually required to make to Apple for upgrades/support (whether lump sum or monthly, and whether or not called a "subsidy") do have to be recouped, and they can't be recovered if unlocked. Thus your sophomoric conclusions of "rapacious greed" and shark jumping are not only ridiculous, but demonstrate a previously held belief/conclusion in search of any thread of support. So flawed and anti-Apple it could have been written by Dvorak.

 

[Sijmen]

I don't see how a phone locked to a single network with a very narrow (and expensive!) set of plans can by any good for the customer.

 

[Sobe]

I don't see how a phone locked to a single network with a very narrow (and expensive!) set of plans can by any good for the customer.

How about...without the guaranteed revenues from being tied to one carrier, the risk involved with a company venturing into an entirely new market like Apple is with the mobile phone market would be too high.

By locking themselves into one carrier they certainly limit some consumer choices regarding using that product, but (and this is a big but) the big picture is a market where the iPhone exists versus one where it does not.

People act as if the choice were between limitless consumer choice and what we have now. The fact is that the real choice is what we have now or a world where the iPhone doesn't exist.

So if you like being able to choose an iPhone over a blackberry or a treo or a razr, then you just got a whole lot of benefit.

And guess who took the risk to get you that benefit? It wasn't you, it wasn't macforums posters, and it wasn't me -- it was Apple and Jobs and AT&T.

 

[Sijmen]

I can see how Apple took a risk when making the iPhone, but there risk for AT&T was close to zero. Look at how many iPhones have been sold - and those were only the people willing to commit to a two-year $ 60 or so contract.

 

[Sobe]

I can see how Apple took a risk when making the iPhone, but there risk for AT&T was close to zero. Look at how many iPhones have been sold - and those were only the people willing to commit to a two-year $ 60 or so contract.

Certainly AT&T's risk is rather small, but it's easy to say that now after we have seen all the phones being sold.

Yes there was tremendous hype for the product, but nothing is guaranteed.

 

[boz0]

I'd like to throw in some figures for comparison: German carrier Eplus offers the Nokia N95 for 340€ with a 2 yr contract, or 700€ w/o contract. Apply the same math to the iPhone: 823€ w/o contract.

The T-Mobile price point of 999€ is not too far off—given the fact that they'd rather sell you a contract to go with the iPhone.

All phones are far more expensive than they oughta be, considering the technology inside. The iPhone's a bit more pricey than most (enough that I won't get one, even when my current contract runs out), but I agree, it's not that big a difference when you consider how many people go for the looks of a device.

 

[Otaviano]

Apple is not trying to thwart the system. Apple is trying to break and remake the system, and the consumer will benefit. To say that "excuses have been "debunked" is narrow minded, myopic, "it's so because I say it's so" thinking. Upgrade costs do have to be recovered, additional payments which the carrier is contractually required to make to Apple for upgrades/support (whether lump sum or monthly, and whether or not called a "subsidy") do have to be recouped, and they can't be recovered if unlocked. Thus your sophomoric conclusions of "rapacious greed" and shark jumping are not only ridiculous, but demonstrate a previously held belief/conclusion in search of any thread of support. So flawed and anti-Apple it could have been written by Dvorak.

How ever did Apple manage all these year to provide support and software upgrades on their other products without receiving kickbacks from retailers and distributers is beyond me.

 

[Sijmen]

Certainly AT&T's risk is rather small, but it's easy to say that now after we have seen all the phones being sold.

Yes there was tremendous hype for the product, but nothing is guaranteed.

If the phone and the contract were uncoupled, the networks wouldn't have anything to worry about - as they would have nothing to do with the product. Apple could just have sold the iPhone at the Apple store.

 

[boz0]

But if you look at the bottom line. The American iphone is cheaper, the American iphone monthly plan is cheaper and AT&T/T-Mobile both give out unlocking codes (except the iphone of course) after 90 days for free.

Then you look at the other side of the Atlantic. The European iphone is more expensive, the European iphone monthly plan is more expensive and various European "consumer protection" laws across various European countries allow European carriers to charge money for unlocking codes.

Well, everything that Apple sells is more expensive in Europe, partly courtesy of the USD-EUR conversion rates. In France, the $1099 Macbook (Black Friday rebate notwithstanding) is priced at $1486 (yes, that's VAT-free).

As far as unlocking is concerned, I'm not sure about other countries, but in France, your carrier has to do it for free provided your contract is at least 6 months old. This has no impact on the contract itself, so if you want to shift to another carrier, you may have to pay extra to cancel the current contract.

 

[Sijmen]

As far as I know, most phones that come with a contract are not locked, while pay to go phones are. That's not governed by law, again, as far as I know. But they do have to give you unlock codes after 12 months, that's what I did when switching carriers.

 

[boz0]

i don't understand this at all. apple can sell any product it wants in any way it wants. what is the public need in having them sell the iphone unlocked? if people don't like t-mobile, then they can just get another phone on another wireless company.

this unlocking thing is starting to sound like the anti-DRM argument, to me. somehow, people think they have the right to control the way a company does its business. if you don't like it, do business with someone else.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. No company is above the law, though many act like they are. What you're saying, basically, is that companies' interests should supersede countries' interests. Trust me, you don't want to live in a world where that behaviour becomes general.

To paraphrase you, "Apple, if you don't like the laws in Europe, do business somewhere else".

Apple is not trying to thwart the system. Apple is trying to break and remake the system, and the consumer will benefit. [...]

*cough*

Just exactly how will I benefit from Apple forcing me through a specific operator with little to no choice in contracts, just so they can grab a share of the mobile phone carrier business?

Oh, wait, I know. That's 399 quids I'm not going to spend. Talk about benefits ...

Why can't US people understand that other countries might have consumer protection laws, and that these laws have been actually designed to benefit the consumer?

 

[samab]

Why can't US people understand that other countries might have consumer protection laws, and that these laws have been actually designed to benefit the consumer?

No, these laws are designed to be totally useless.

That's why after all the fuss about France suing Apple for itunes' DRM --- nothing happened. Useless consumer protection laws --- means useless government remedies.