2 words... Voided warranty!

IT WAS ME!!!!!!!!!

From what I've heard (read) even Apple had to accept locking to get some of the features it wanted (visual voicemail for one).

Which is part of the problem. There's no *good* reason for locking phones to a particular provider. There's the argument for subsidized phones, but the contract can handle that part, whether the phone is locked or not. Locking is nothing more than an anti-competitive measure.

Given the various unlocking methods for the iPhone, it's not illegal to unlock it yourself, as there's an explicit exemption to the DMCA (even though the DMCA is a bad law, in all) to allow circumvention for the purpose of unlocking a phone. It gets into some grey territory as to whether a company can sell unlocking codes or tools.

Even with that said, there's at least one retailer (puremobile, in canada), that is getting ready to sell unlocked iPhones (and I'm sure others are in the queue). Warranty might be an issue, and I'm sure the current unlocks may not hold against future changes, but the genie is definitely out of the bottle (and there really wasn't much doubt about that happening). Unlocked iPhones aren't going away.


Sooner or later, the US cellular providers are going to have to give up on the whole locking issue and let their service (such as it may be) be the primary selling point.

And you still can't use it on Verizon or Alltel due to the fact that they don't take SIM cards. So it will only work for some carriers.

Yeah that would bas as cool as say oh some one unlocking the object desktop subscription so it can be installed on any computer... Hypocrites...

That's an invalid comparison.

First off, you can't magically copy off an iPhone and give it away for free (at least not yet ). Second, once you buy it, it's yours, and it is explicitly legal for you to unlock it to use on another carrier.

If you've signed a contract with AT&T for service, unlocking the phone doesn't magically get you out of the contract. You either have to pay the early termination fee, or pay on your plan until the contract expires. If you haven't activated and contracted with AT&T, then you don't owe them anything, and can do whatever you like with the iPhone.

There *may* be some grey areas in the law concerning selling the unlocking codes or tools, but the act of unlocking the phone, in itself, is legal.

Not to mention that there are quite a few clones in the pipeline.

This is all academic for me, since I'm not really interested in the iPhone, anyway (apart from some curiosity). My next phone will likely be the N95 (I do, however, buy all of my phones unlocked).

Additionally, your example of 'cracking' Object Desktop is also inaccurate. The serial number that allows you to download and update is tied to a particular person. While I imagine it would be possible for you to pass around these credentials, I suspect that it would be noticed at some point and invalidated. That kind of thing is why, for example, I prefer Stardock's version of software control and authentication to something like WGA.

apple's decision to lock the iPhone to one service provider is one of the stupidest economical decisions they could have made. yes they seeminlgy are making a lot of money on this based on the large amount of iphones they have sold, but just think of all the sales they forgoed by forcing users to have to use at&t - called implicit costs in the world of economics. im sure the implicit costs far outweigh what net income they make off the iphone.