Wouldn't it make sense if 1.1.2 locked the iphone to all announced carriers?

[brucku]

Not sure if this has been discussed before. But wouldn't it make sense (and be awesome of course) if Apple were to lock the phone in a new way, so that while traveling any owner of an iphone could use it on the partnered networks?


At this point, if I take my iphone to Germany for work, I can't pop in a prepaid carrier card of ANY kind right? I'm thinking apple would do wonders for its feature list if the phone could compete with EVERY GSM phone thats been released to date.

I realize that there may be a mhz limitation here, so maybe only some carriers work with the AT&T iphone. Maybe this is a feature they're considering for the next revision?

This also wouldn't break any contracts with the providers I don't think - and would bring them each roaming business when customers travel.

 

[edesignuk]

I'm confused. You can already roam to different countries piggy backing on partner networks.

 

[brucku]

oh really

Oh really? I didn't realize that - do you mean you can pay AT&T's ridiculous roaming fees - or you can buy a pre-paid on another apple iphone partner?

 

[edesignuk]

You pay insane roaming fees, but it will work.

 

[4nr-]

Apple gets a fee from each carrier for every contract opened by an iPhone user. If people are gonna start using pre paid cards and old contracts, apple will lose out on a lot of money.