News - iPhone 3G S unlock path discovered

[HEXUS]

Liberation from O2, AT&T etc coming soon?

Read more.

[aidanjt]

When will companies learn that VRM is a fruitless waste of time, effort, money, and customer sanity?

[TheAnimus]

Why do people buy something that you have to do something which is for most countries is grey legally speaking to get it to do what you want?

No Warrenty, No Thanks.

[Michaelv]

The iPhone? is that thing still around?...

[Andehh]

Kudos to them, if i bought bought phone then I'd want to do whatever i wanted with it!

[aidanjt]

Originally Posted by TheAnimus

Why do people buy something that you have to do something which is for most countries is grey legally speaking to get it to do what you want?

No Warrenty, No Thanks.

Squashing consumer choice is more than 'legally grey' as well, yet companies continue to do it.

[CrazyMonkey]

Originally Posted by aidanjt

When will companies learn that VRM is a fruitless waste of time, effort, money, and customer sanity?

Well said.

[TheAnimus]

Originally Posted by aidanjt

Squashing consumer choice is more than 'legally grey' as well, yet companies continue to do it.

Yes because they make more money out of it.

Consumers going along with it, on the other hand are only hurting themselfs.

[aidanjt]

Originally Posted by TheAnimus

Yes because they make more money out of it.

Consumers going along with it, on the other hand are only hurting themselfs.

That's because they don't have any other choice but to go along with it. Granted, nobody is forced to buy an iPhone in particular, but it's the same variation of a theme. SIM locking, DRM in games, DRM in video discs, DRM in some audio discs, viral IP is everywhere. That's why I referred to it as VRM (Viral Restrictions Management). None of it hasn't been broken, or bypassed in some way, not one. But companies still go ahead and use it regardless.

[llololloy]

Don't forget though, these mobiles are subsidised by the networks, fair play to them for wanting you to use it on their network. If they didn't lock it, you'd be paying a hell of a lot more for your phone.
Look how much it costs on pre pay, and even then it's still subsidised, just to a lesser extent.
I don't think the comparison with drm etc.. is fair. Only if you pay full whack retail cost for the phone would it be unfair to stay network locked.

[aidanjt]

If they want you to use their network, then they should be competitive. Not locking you in with snake oil. It's the same thing.

[TheAnimus]

Also you are still paying them the money?

My touch HD is on a 12 month T-Mobile. I frequently put in a foriegn sim card (i've got quite a collection of pre-pay now ) when abroad. As i seldom spend over my monthly £35, its not as if they miss out on money by people doing that.

The thing is with the phones there are hundreads of other handsets available which aren't locked in the same silly way.

[lodore]

I dont understand why apple only sell it to like one network per country?
is it so that its less work for apple to support the platform?

surely if all networks offered the iphone it would be more competive pricing?

[aidanjt]

No, it's so Apple doesn't have to face a network competition drive forcing their hand to lower the price. Support would be the same (via the network). Oh, and they can squeeze better network exclusivity deals out of whatever network they're working with in a particular country.

[Funkstar]

This is definitely the case now. Ex clusive deals are very common in the US, so being exclusive on AT&T wasn't really that big of a surprise. But by the time they came to offer it round the world, the networks were lining up with big bags of cash looking for the same exclusive deal.

I also believe new contracts are signed for every new release, so at each hardware refresh, the networks turn up with more bags of cash.

[cheesemp]

Originally Posted by Funkstar

This is definitely the case now. Ex clusive deals are very common in the US, so being exclusive on AT&T wasn't really that big of a surprise. But by the time they came to offer it round the world, the networks were lining up with big bags of cash looking for the same exclusive deal.

Very true - you can tell by the way the O2 stores/web site act like the iphone is the only phone you might want. It always the front page item - The N97 didn't ever appear. Got to make that money they paid out somehow.