Unlocked iPhone goes on sale in Austria!

[swagi]

There you go. The Austrian discounter Penny Markt (so much for Apple's exclusive image) started selling an unlocked iPhone for the price tag of 799,- €

The phone is available in select markets an in the online store:

http://www.penny.at/penny/autoLayouts/pe_NavOben.asp?kategorienr=59940&seitennr=153477&LinkContent=http://www.penny.at/penny/autoLayouts/pe_Default.asp&lckatNr=59940&lcsNr=153477
Lucky Austrians

 

[hollerz]

Something tells me this isn't official.

 

[Tsuius]

There is nothing on the Austrian Apple website either.

 

[swagi]

Well, I guess, they haven't noticed yet...

Either that, or they want to test out, how many iPhones will really float around on the grey market. Especially if you consider the price tag, which is 50 € above the French unlocked ones, but 200 € below the two week unlocked iPhone intermezzo in Germany.

The simple fact that there is still no official reaction to this, and the fact that it hasn't been pulled already, tells me that something is going on.

Penny sells this thing with one year warranty. So they have to be somewhat backed up, if e.g. a firmware update breaks functionality.

Maybe Austria is to small a country to try and milk the mobile providers. Maybe we are experiencing, what Apple will do in the smaller European countries, where the critical mass of mobile contracts isn't met.

 

[samab]

The simple fact that there is still no official reaction to this, and the fact that it hasn't been pulled already, tells me that something is going on.

It just means that there are a zillion different unauthorized selling of the iphone around the world and Apple doesn't have the manpower to do anything with it.

Next you would be saying that there are tons of people selling counterfeit hollywood movies on the streets and it must be the Hollywood studio secretly okeying it.