iPhone in Asia..too long- Unlock Please

[ThinkGeek]

The iPhone is coming out in Asia in 2008 right...why not Apple just come out with a 3G phone with no tied provider. i dont need the visualvoicemail stuff. having a phone branded by apple is good enough. a good ui is enough. few nice features. or just let us buy a phone from the us.....UNLOCKABLE!!

iPhone rules if they were unlocked

 

[MacbookSwitcher]

The iPhone is coming out in Asia in 2008 right...why not Apple just come out with a 3G phone with no tied provider. i dont need the visualvoicemail stuff. having a phone branded by apple is good enough. a good ui is enough. few nice features. or just let us buy a phone from the us.....UNLOCKABLE!!

iPhone rules if they were unlocked

Here's my theory on what happened:

Certifying a cell phone to use with a provider such as Cingular or Sprint is a major task. The phone must pass a huge array of requirements and have all kind of features the carrier asks for. The phone maker is essentially at the mercy of the carrier, since the carrier gets to decide if they will allow the phone on their network.

Apple being Apple, probably wanted to skip out on some of the requirements Cingular was asking for, because Jobs thought they would make for a bad user experience or were unnecessary. So Apple made a deal that they could get out of certain Cingular carrier requirements in exchange for being exclusive to Cingular.

It's also entirely possible that the $499 and $599 pricepoints are in fact subsidized by Cingular. With that nice screen on the iPhone, the 4 GB of memory and the miniturization of components, I wouldn't be surprised if the real price was even higher than that.

 

[iWizzard]

Aperently the components i much cheaper than $399/ $499. Read something around 50 or 70 percent of the price

 

[Chundles]

Here's my theory on what happened:

Certifying a cell phone to use with a provider such as Cingular or Sprint is a major task. The phone must pass a huge array of requirements and have all kind of features the carrier asks for. The phone maker is essentially at the mercy of the carrier, since the carrier gets to decide if they will allow the phone on their network.

Not in Asia, or at least Australia. Here the carriers will do anything to get the good phones on their network. The idea of a carrier dictating the features of a phone is ludicrous here. If the iPhone looks like it's going to be a big success upon launch in the US/Europe then all the carriers will jump through hoops to get it on their network for a slice of the pie.

 

[ThinkGeek]

Yeah! wait isnt the iPhone going to be on the UK Vodafone Network? Does the Vodafone compatible iPhone can also be used by Vodafone's Affliates in other countries like XL in Indonesia...please..please...