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The greedy lawyers behind these class action lawsuits are the only people who end up making some real money (and they get lots of it). Even though I could make a little cash off it, I don't want to support a lawsuit that was created to quickly make a few people at the top rich.
 
Simple solution, if a class action suit fails, make the lawyers liable for all court costs and damages to the accused company. Most of these cases would end overnight.

And on another note, anyone else think that the little small dog electronics mascot looks like pedobear?
 
KingYaba. Nice sig.

yeah, that "Texas: illegally acquired, universally admired" sig does make me laugh.

having lived down here for awhile, that is pretty much the mind-set.

the sad thing is, no one down here seems to realize how (unintentionally?) ironic they are being with that stuff.

they don't seem to understand that _outside_ of Texas.... no one is admiring texas.

IN texas, texas is a pretty big deal. OUTSIDE of texas, it's really more of a joke.

not that it matters... it just makes me laugh when i see that sig. :D

as a state, Texas does more self-advertising than most corporations.

and that means there are lots of Texas fanbois! :p
 
If Apple and AT&T agreed to an exclusivity contract, in that Apple's iPhone and subsequent iPhones will be honed to AT&T and AT&T only, how does you as a third party purchaser of the iPhone allow for that exclusivity contract between Apple and AT&T to be broken when you were not a party to the exclusivity contract. It is not an agreement between Apple, AT&T and You. You can't amend, bend, break an agreement you had no voice in creating or benefit in adjoining.

My six year old Sony-Ericsson T-Mobile phone won't work on AT&T, Sprint or Verizon for that matter. Should I demand the courts make either Sony-Ericsson or the cellular networks comply with regards to making my phone not just mobile as defined but mobile to any carrier I choose? Or someone else with their phone?

Your six year old Sony-Ericsson T-Mobile phone will certainly work on ATT since it is a GSM phone. You only have to get it unlocked which is readily available. In fact T-Mobile would have unlocked it for you after six months of your contract. Sprint and Verizon are CDMA network which is a whole other issue.
 
Stupidest **** ever, period. I could see, maybe, if the phone would work on any carrier. But it doesn't. I'm gonna sue Blu-Ray because their disks don't play in my DVD player.
 
AT&T just unlock the phone after the two year or upon termination of the plan, that's how it is everywhere else (practically) and how it should be. If you paid, then the phone is now yours.
 
Stupidest **** ever, period. I could see, maybe, if the phone would work on any carrier. But it doesn't. I'm gonna sue Blu-Ray because their disks don't play in my DVD player.

It does work with other GSM carriers, both in the US and other countries.
 
I understand what you are saying, but how is this any different than any other exclusive phone on any other carrier these days? If I fulfill a contract for an Evo, where else can I take that phone and use it once I'm done with it? Same for the Droid X, Droid Incredible, etc? I can't take those Verizon Droids to Sprint, even though they are on the same network technology. It's been a few years since I've had a CDMA contract (that has run out and I'm no longer using the phone), but when I did, if a CDMA smartphone wasn't provisioned on the network at boot-up, it wouldn't even function as a PDA...


Thanks for proving my point. YES YOU CAN take a Droid X to sprint when your contract is up and Verizon unlocks it! I have moved smartphones from one network to another without any problem, and even AT&T will unlock any of their other phones for you at the end of the contract period!
 
You write a whole pointless page saying that the lawsuit is stupid and then with the above sentence you say the lawsuit is great because it might fullfill its only meaningful goal: unlocking the paid for current iphones.

The only point about this lawsuit is to get enough pressure on apple to unlock our paid for iphones.

The entire monopoly blah blah is indeed unjustified and pointless. But unlocking my 2G and 3GS phone would give me phones worth hundreds because I just have to pop my T-Mobile card (or whatever is good in other countries) into my iphone and I have reasonable voice and data prices around Europe.

People use your brains. This is not about justice or monopoly or whatever. This is about unlocking the iPhones after the contract ends and about making a few lawyers rich.

Lol, wow, some one has a lack of reading comprehension. I didn't praise the suit, but I gave an option of what COULD happen if it passes. I don't want it to happen because it's a slippery slope effect for many other things.

I don't think the lawsuit is about monopoly. I thinks it is more about the phone does not fulfill the purpose for which it was sold. "Making Telephone Calls". With regard to unlocking, why do you think unlockers are all about moving to T-Mobile. I happen to use T-Mobile but I bought my Iphone 3GS 32G on Ebay, never had an ATT contract and wanted it because it provided the things I wanted from a single device. My phone is unlocked and I travel extensively and have a box of Sim cards at home from multiple countries. I get to use a single device when I travel with all my contacts in the phone, all my music in the phone and all the APPs that i use including financial apps and news in the single device. If you use +country code with all your contact phone numbers when you set them up you never have to worry about which country you are in. I know my profile does not fit the average user but try and take a larger view of the world.

I also travel and have unlocked my iPhone. However, all that doesn't excuse the stupidity of this lawsuit. It is a monopoly lawsuit, that's how it's worded. Thing is, people have to undestand that when they signed off on Apple's terms (required to buy an iPhone), they surrendered that right. Simple as that.
 
I'm suing Verizon and Microsoft for 1) an unfair, exclusive partnership on the Kin, and 2) killing the Kin before we had sufficient time to mock it publicly.

I'm also suing Sprint for using a CDMA network, which doesn't allow me to unlock my iPhone and subscribe to one of Sprint's cheaper plans.

I'm suing AT&T for being overall screw-ups.

And I'm suing T-Mobile for having too wimpy a data network to tempt me to unlock my iPhone and run it as a T-Mobile phone.

I demand justice. Or something.


Go ahead and try to sue then. It's a free country. I bet you won't find a lawyer willing to take your case though. Because none of your proposed suits has any merit whatsoever. This one does.
 
Doesn't the DMCA say it is legal to unlock your cell phone from your carrier? Don't the cell carriers have to comply with this law by unlocking it if you wish? Regardless of whether they will charge a fee or not if you unlock, I would think they would have to comply and do it for you.
 
I have NEVER heard it put so well :)

Actually, you have never heard it so wrong.

McDonald's sells their OWN Big Macs in their own "restaurants". It's not like Burger King manufactures the Big Mac and has a deal with McDonald's that you can only buy a Burger King-made Big Mac when signing a subscription with McDonald's. Also, it's not as if the iPhone can only be used once (like a Big Mac); but if you want to use it, you have to use it with AT&T (in the US) EVEN AFTER your contract with AT&T has expired because the thing won't work with any other carrier.

You want an analogy? Imagine Ford has made a deal with BP that you can only fuel their cars at a BP gas station. You buy a car and sign a two-year contract that you have to buy your gas at BP. After the two years, you discover that you can still only buy your gas at a BP station because only their nozzles fit in your tank. I think we can all agree that something's wrong with that picture - to the point that it could easily be called deception or fraud.
 
[T]here was widespread disclosure of [AT&T's] five-year exclusivity...

Um, what? No there wasn't! Apple and AT&T have never officially said on-the-record how long their exclusivity agreement was. USAToday wrote a story that said this was how long it was, but that story was never proven to be true. If it had truly been "disclosed" by Apple/AT&T we wouldn't have had all this speculation over the last 3-4 years about how long the agreement is.

...and no suggestion by Apple or anyone else that iPhones would become unlocked after two years," Apple said in a response.

There doesn't need to be a suggestion. This is how the industry works.

  1. Consumer buys phone with subsidy.
  2. Consumer agrees to fulfill their subsidy's contract requirements.
  3. Consumer fulfills their part of agreement.
  4. Consumer now owns the phone outright.
  5. Carrier allows unlock of phone as it has no legal basis to keep consumer from using phone on whatever carrier the phone can work with.
The "early termination fee" was what you paid if you didn't fulfill you portion of the agreement. It was you paying the carrier back for the subsidy they gave you since you didn't give them the service subscription business you promised. In both cases you have paid the "rest of the phone's cost" and it is now yours.

Part of the problem here is people weren't suing AT&T when they first started denying unlock requests years ago. AT&T has gotten the idea they get to keep a lock on a device they have no claim to, and you Apple Airheads let them.
 
Hey Mark Rifkin? I Want To Opt Out Of Your Bogus Lawsuit

I am a tool of Apple's need to control the OS and all Apps that run on it. I am also a tool of what carrier they choose to offer the iPhone on. I do not appreciate you trying to say I have FAKE FREE WILL when I do not nor do I want any FREE WILL. So get my name off the suit or I will sue you for putting it on there without my permission. :D
 
I'm suing Verizon and Microsoft for 1) an unfair, exclusive partnership on the Kin, and 2) killing the Kin before we had sufficient time to mock it publicly.

I'm also suing Sprint for using a CDMA network, which doesn't allow me to unlock my iPhone and subscribe to one of Sprint's cheaper plans.

I'm suing AT&T for being overall screw-ups.

And I'm suing T-Mobile for having too wimpy a data network to tempt me to unlock my iPhone and run it as a T-Mobile phone.

I demand justice. Or something.

So little understanding about the carrier networks. T-Mobile has a fully capable 3G network just like ATT. The difference is that the 3G frequency allocated to T-Mobile in the USA by the FCC is different to the one that ATT uses. The apple Iphone does not support the T-Mobile 3G frequency at this time but T-Mobile also operate a 2G/Edge network which is compatible with the Iphone but not as fast as 3G.
As a matter of Fact T-Mobile was the first carrier in the US to offer GSM when ATT was still in the dark old analogue days.
 
You want an analogy? Imagine Ford has made a deal with BP that you can only fuel their cars at a BP gas station. You buy a car and sign a two-year contract that you have to buy your gas at BP.

Bad analogy, because the iPhone doesn't work on Sprint, T-Mobile, and other networks due to differences in hardware. Therefore, your gasoline analogy is broken, because the same gas I buy at Shell, Chevron, the mom and pop convenience store, as well as BP all power my car. If Ford designed and sold a car that only worked on a special BP blend that only worked in that vehicle, then you'd have something.
 
Once again I suggest looking outside of the USA. I am able to sell my phones so easy to people in the US (my 2G, 3G and soon my 3GS) because in Australia you can get them unlocked, you can also buy them outright under no contract. Why not just go online and order an unlocked phone, it will cost you around $1000 but you will have it unlocked.
 
This is really stupid. It's actions like this that puts the good American name to shame. I, as a natural born citizen, am pretty much disgusted to see that we as a nation have fallen to the point where suing is an easy way to make money. If you don't like how the iPhone is on at&t, stop buying it, and the phone will either end up on other carriers or go away completely.
 
This is really stupid. It's actions like this that puts the good American name to shame. I, as a natural born citizen, am pretty much disgusted to see that we as a nation have fallen to the point where suing is an easy way to make money. If you don't like how the iPhone is on at&t, stop buying it, and the phone will either end up on other carriers or go away completely.

Of course when MSFT was in court, the attitude was completely different. Back then it was YEAH SCREW MSFT GET EM!!!!!:eek:
 
None other

You guys are missing the fact that the carrier is REQUIRED to unlock your phone after the contract is over. AT&T is not doing this ONLY for the iPhone.

I dont have a problem with this because I mean first the iphone is designed to only run on gsm and no other company is unlocking their phones after contract, "verizon, t-mobile, at&t" like that one kid said ill complain when im able to play little big planet on my xbox 360 or can get a whopper at mcdonalds
 
This is asinine. The phone can't even WORK on other carriers because they all use different technologies and frequencies. What, are you gonna take your GSM iPhone to Verizon's CDMA network and expect it to work? Neither ATT or Apple promised you your iPhone would work on another network after two years. If you don't like it, buy a phone on someone elses network.

As for the continued monopoly claims regarding Apps, again if you don't like Apple's system, which they have been upfront about since the day it was announced, go with someone else. Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony, etc. all control what software is and isn't officially available for their devices. Should we start suing them too?

Does a HTC EVO work on AT&T? Lets sue HTC and Sprint!
 
I dont have a problem with this because I mean first the iphone is designed to only run on gsm and no other company is unlocking their phones after contract, "verizon, t-mobile, at&t" like that one kid said ill complain when im able to play little big planet on my xbox 360 or can get a whopper at mcdonalds

Correct, the iPhone is designed to run on GSM, so it can run on AT&T or T-Mobile in the U.S., not to mention that, being a quad-band GSM phone, it can run on most other GSM networks in Europe, Africa, and Australia.

What if someone bought their iPhone in the U.S. and after their contract had been fulfilled was relocating to the U.K.? Should they have to buy another phone when the one they have will work perfectly fine if it's unlocked?

Also, I don't know what you mean by "no other company is unlocking their phones after contract", they all do, even AT&T. The fact AT&T singles out the iPhone only as the handset they wont unlock should have been enough by itself for a lawsuit before this. I mean, if it was a company-wide policy they applied to all phones they might have half a leg to stand on since it would be one of those things you knew was going to be the case when you did business with them. But they never mentioned this no-unlock policy before they started carrying the iPhone. It wasn't until people started actually trying to leave AT&T's service and get their phones unlocked this came to light. And they then started that it applied to the iPhone only.
 
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