With Apple’s decision to make the iPhone exclusive once again, I can’t help but wonder what Steve and company were thinking. And what point does it become common sense that if you really want to stop iPhone unlocking, maybe you shouldn’t keep the iPhone on one carrier? Hasn’t Apple learned anything from this AT&T debacle? Obviously not.
Sad as it is, Apple is now opening itself up to widespread unlocking that it may or may not like. Sure, it’ll make more money that way and all that comes with that will surely benefit the company, but could it have future implications on the entire cell phone industry once the widespread unlocking begins? Think of it this way: if Apple enters into an exclusive agreement with a cell phone carrier and that carrier doesn’t receive the kind of revenue it expects from the deal due to iPhone unlocks, what does that say for the agreement? Will any cell phone carrier want to enter into another agreement with Apple once it realizes that iPhone exclusivity doesn’t necessarily mean overwhelming profits?
Maybe Steve Jobs should have left the iPhone open. What do you think?
Don Reisinger is a freelance technology journalist who covers everything from HDTVs to the iPhone. He writes The Digital Home for CNET, product reviews for InformationWeek and PC World, and contributes to over 15 publications throughout the world.
2 Responses to “Hasn’t Apple learned anything?”
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September 19th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
Sometimes it’s hard to see things from Apple’s perspective. In this case, exclusive agreements means more money. That’s what Apple, Inc. exists for – make money for shareholders. Fail to make money for shareholders, and there’s lawsuits
As for learning anything… heck, they’ve sold over a Million phones in a REALLY short period of time – I may be missing something, but, what was the downside to selling a million phones with exclusive contracts for them? Hmm…. yeah, not seeing it.
Phones that are unlocked from speciffic carriers benefit the consumer, not nessisarily the seller. I’m all for unlocking them (Though, I’m extremely happy with my AT&T service at the moment
, and I’m betting over time that’s the way it will end up going in about a year from now after the benefit for Apple, Inc. of locking people into a single carrier per region begins to expire (IE – people who hated Cingular / AT&T don’t adopt the iPhone, and Apple begins to see a slowdown in sales.)
Davis
http://www.opentheiphone.org
September 20th, 2007 at 10:29 am
So if the phone is unlocked and if I want visual voice mail and it’s not available with my carrier of choice should I blame Apple like some will do?