it blows my mind how many people seem to think this comes down to "their right to choose" who they do business with, but in the same breath are prepared to deny a private entity the same "right".
there is a difference between your "right to choose" and your "ability to acquire". i hate to break it to many of you, but at least in the US, you DO NOT have the RIGHT to own an iPhone. you don't even have the RIGHT to cell service. civics lesson for you all. in the US you have the RIGHT to Life, Liberty, and the PURSUIT of Happiness. notice it says the PURSUIT of happiness, not the GUARANTEE of happiness, or the RE-DISTRIBUTION of happiness. if buying an iPhone is what will make you happy, then you have the right to PURSUE that, but there is no guarantee that you will acquire it. if you wont be happy with ATT, you have the right to not get cell service with them, hence your FREEDOM to choose.
that takes us to your FREEDOM to buy an iPhone, NOT your RIGHT to own one.
what you do have is the FREEDOM to make a choice. i choose to purchase an iPhone because i CAN afford it and because i AGREE to the terms, or i can choose NOT to purchase an iPhone.
you also have the FREEDOM from someone telling you that you HAVE TO own a cell phone.
do i think it would be nice for the iPhone to be available to more people through more places, YES. but i also think it's Apple's FREEDOM TO CHOOSE who they do business with. a consequence of that will of course be that some people may not have the "ability to acquire" the product, but it doesnt mean Apple is violating your rights.
do i think service should be cheaper, yes. do i think service could/should be provided without contracts to the consumer, yes. do i think coverage stinks, and wish the carriers took their customers more seriously, yes. do i think there are a million other things wrong with the way cell carriers do business, that if corrected would make life a lot easier and cheaper for me as a consumer, yes. BUT, i have news for you, WE THE CONSUMER are to blame for a majority of these problems.
the cell carriers have adopted and maintained these business models because CONSUMERS have continued to buy into them, BY CHOICE. i dont like it anymore than the rest of you. read the paragraph above again, and you'll see that. BUT you wont get me saying that i DO NOT respect the FREEDOMs and RIGHTs that a private entity has to choose who they do business with.
Apple and ATT exclusive agreements on the iPhone ARE NOT a monopoly. once again, its been stated a million times on this post already, you CAN NOT have a monopoly on a product. monopolies, as they relate to anti-trust law, relate specifically to a MARKET. otherwise, by the shear nature that Apple designed and built the product they would have a monopoly on it and could be forced to release ALL their intellectual property to their competitors (microsoft, sony, etc) so they could all have a stab at building iPhones too.
if Apple found itself in the unique position to demand of ATT, in a contract, that ATT not sell smartphones from any other manufacturer for the privilege of selling the iPhone, they could do that. and ATT could choose to agree. on the surface, that would appear to be monopolistic, but in actuality its not. ATT has the choice to turn down such a deal, which would send Apple packing and having to find somewhere else to do business.
what would be monopolistic, would be for Apple to enter into such an agreement with ATT, and then go out and begin to acquire more carriers within the MARKET, and enter into similar agreements with them. if they did this, they would be violating anti-trust laws, because they would be seeking to better their market position by effectively forcing competition from other smartphone manufacturers out of the market. at that point you would say, they were operating under monopolistic business practices.
exclusive agreements are all around us in our day to day lives. beverage companies make agreements with restaurants, theaters only show movies from specific distribution sources or production companies, etc etc.
going after the exclusive agreements IS NOT going to fix what ails us with regards to the gripes we have about our respective carriers. what it COULD do is take one more card out of the hands of carriers and manufacturers of phones to gain a fair advantage in the market over their competitors.
i guess thats about enough for now. ill wait for responses.
Those bastards. 
