Anonymous Programmers Reveal iPhone Unlocking Software 328
CNN reports details of a group of anonymous programmers who are planning to sell iPhone unlocking software on the Internet. They demonstrated the software hack for CNN and had a T-Mobile sim card working moments after removing the AT&T sim card. This is bound to stir up a lot of controversy: in the US iPhones are supposed to work only on the AT&T network in the first two years according to their agreement with Apple.
It's not really surprising.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Third party (Score:5, Insightful)
Atleast (Score:5, Insightful)
locks make no sense (Score:4, Insightful)
Not bounding (Score:5, Insightful)
They are just unlocking a phone people! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Third party (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:They are just unlocking a phone people! (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, the DMCA must come to the rescue.
Re:locks make no sense (Score:5, Insightful)
This is actually good for Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
This is actually good for Apple because more people will buy an iPhone now that they know they will be able to use a less evil carrier.
Great, but aren't they missing something? (Score:4, Insightful)
I am personally looking forward to getting my grubbies on an iPhone once they land in the UK, and would be happy to be able to make a choice of operator/contract.
Re:Not bounding (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not bounding (Score:2, Insightful)
You can buy the phone without a contract. Purchase of the phone does not imply any contract. Purchase of service from AT&T does, but you don't have to do that to get the phone. Even so, the contract is just for cellular service and has nothing to do with your phone. You may wish to unlock your phone so that you can use it while travelling (much cheaper/easier to get a SIM and a pay-as-you-go contract from a local provider than it is to have to get a whole new phone and contract for the duration of your trip). Unlocking your phone may void its warranty (definitely so with a hardware unlock, maybe not with a software unlock), but that's all.
Is that written in the contract somewhere? Why would a contract for service govern your phone? You're not leasing the handset. You're purchasing it. The purchase price is subsidized by the fact that you also signed up for a contract (at least in the case of a conventional phone) but on a GSM network the phone is not tied to the contract/network -- the SIM card is.
Re:Atleast (Score:5, Insightful)
Will it be fully functional? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Maybe not surprising, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
The price of goods or services is chosen based on the highest price you can get and still sell enough. The cost of manufacturing goods doesn't determine the price at market, it determines whether or not you are in the game of selling the goods. If they cost more to make than you can sell them for you obviously don't sell them. If you can make a profit then you sell them.
Re:Locking is anti-competitive (Score:3, Insightful)
If the US government backed consumers instead of industry, the hackers wouldn't have to be doing this.
Enrico
Re:locks make no sense (Score:2, Insightful)
I (and i assume most people that buy a mobile phone) want a phone with a given feature set that just works (tm).
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Maybe not anything (Score:3, Insightful)
If the bomb is big enough to damage someone else's property then they might arrest you for criminal damage, but if it just explodes in your back yard and makes a crater in your lawn noone will care.
Re:locks make no sense (Score:3, Insightful)
The provider locks are there to try and prevent you using the phone with a competing service, although it seems rather pointless to do this.
Application locks on the other hand, just suck... The operator intentionally crippling the features of a phone (and often not telling you in advance) is a terrible thing to do.
If you were to buy a cheap phone on contract, and then use it with another operator you would still be paying for the original contracted service. The provider wouldnt lose anything (and probably gain because you wouldnt be using your inclusive minutes). If you break the contract and stop paying, then they can take you to court for breach of contract anyway.
What it does do, is prevent people from going on holiday and using a locally acquired sim. I recently went to another country for a week, and would have liked to buy a prepaid sim locally, not only so i could call people there far more cheaply than using roaming, but also so the people i was visiting could call me at local rate instead of international rate (and i would have been paying for the incoming calls on roaming too).
Preventing the use of certain phone features is just ridiculous, for instance Orange UK disable the SIP client on nokia N95 phones. I would like to use that SIP client when within range of my wireless AP at home or at work to make cheaper calls, especially international calls and calls to internal extensions. Orange disable this to prevent people saving money this way.
BTW, if anyone knows how to unlock an N95 and get this functionality back please let me know.
Heh (Score:5, Insightful)
I never said that the cost of manufacturing dictates the market price. It does however, yes, dictate whether you stay in that game or not. "Would it still sell for $1000?" is actually a damn valid question. It's the "can we stay in that game?" question, in fact.
Apple's model is based on getting a hefty part of the price subsidized by AT&T. Without it, would they still be in the game of selling iPhones? The others faced the exact same question, and that's why they didn't make an iPhone before. That's what I'm saying there.
So if you got tripped that badly by "Would it still sell for $1000?", then maybe it's you who needs to re-read those econ 101 notes. Because while you've proven that you can repeat the trivia, I see no sign of actual understanding there. _That_ question is exactly what determines whether you're in that game or not. If you don't understand that, the rest is just mechanically spewing trivia, and not much of a sign of economic wisdom.
Re:Maybe not surprising, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
- we'd sell X1 thousand units at price Y1, unlocked and for everyone
- we'd sell X2 thousand units at the much lower price Y2, even if it's tied to AT&T
Obviously they thought that X2 > X1.
Whether that's right or wrong, smart or dumb, I couldn't tell. But basically, yes, Apple obviously thought that that's a smart move. Feel free to agree or disagree with them, though.
Re:Atleast (Score:3, Insightful)
When I went to college marketing invovled things like research and excluded things like advertising, my hunch is people who are most likely to be all "Apple, bright shiney, must have" are also likely to be "AT&T , yuck nasty keep away" and the "marriage" was mostly wishful thinking on the part of AT&T's advertising dept. When brands are mismatched, somebody is going to get the short end of the stick.
Re:Maybe not surprising, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
The funny thing about your post is that you're simply incorrect. The parts for the iPhone are about $250. Gluing them together doesn't cost another $250.
"Seeing the extent to which the iPhone is locked down, makes me think Apple negotiated some pretty damn hefty subsidies for it."
Incorrect yet again! This is not some extreme level of lock-down. It's simply an Apple product. Apple tells you how you're supposed to use it, and for about a week people use it that way, until someone figures out how to use it the way WE want to use it. Look at the Apple TV. Or running Windows on a Mac (Boot Camp only came out because someone figured out how to do it without Apple's help). Look at Linux on the iPod.
I've got a Macbook Pro and love it, so don't think I'm hating on Apple, but there's a certain way they do things, and the iPhone is business as usual.
Re:Maybe not anything (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Third party (Score:2, Insightful)
That said, considering that even in the US you have to click 'yes' to license agreement to be bound by it (never mind the abusiveness of said license), I'd tend to think the rules are similar.
Re:Third party (Score:2, Insightful)
He wasn't stating any opinion at all! He was merely stating the fact that you don't sign anything when you buy the iphone except for the credit card slip. You inferred an opinion where none was given and flamed him for it.
Besides, your link is bullshit anyway. Since when do Dell's terms and conditions pass for law? Remember "by opening this package you consent to our terms and conditions?"
Re:Atleast (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand, if you were just referring to the freedom to buy an unlocked handset, well, um, never mind then.
Re:Heh (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Maybe not surprising, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
What Apple is doing is not price fixing. It's price setting. Price fixing when when two or more suppliers of a commodity agree to the price at which they offer the commodity. Usually the purpose of price fixing is to offer that commodity at a higher price than would occur in a free market. Apple is only one company and it's arguable that the iPhone is not a commodity. Apple can set whatever price they feel the market will bear. If customers don't like the price, they won't buy the phones.
Carping about Apple won't make them change their pricing policies. They have established themselves as innovators through their failures: the Lisa, and the Newton, and their successes: The iPod, the iMac, and probably the iPhone. Their formula is simple: concentrate on quality and ease of use. That innovator status gives them the ability to dictate price to downstream suppliers. I'll grant you that I may have paid Apple more money for my iPod than say Creative Labs or Microsoft. I can assure you that I've paid more money for my Mac Mini and iMac than I would have for an "equivalent" PC. But the measure of "value" is subjective and I consider the extra value from Apple's quality and ease of use to be worth the extra money.
-- Ecks
Re:Atleast (Score:2, Insightful)
Hunh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to be too cynical, but seeing as
uber geeks and hax0rs, I shouldn't have to state that they must have spent a
fortune on programming for this product. EVEN if they used only ultra cheap
programmers from you-know-where-places, it would still have taken many many
thousands of hours to write, and assuming it was put together in China, and shipped
to the US, a cost of $220 is about as realistic as the $1000 arse value.
No, I suspect, a more realistic cost to be in the neighborhood of $500 to produce.
My reasoning is based on:
1) having worked for years in the assembly of everything from EKGs to IBM Mainframes to 747 flight simulators
(not your video programs, but full scale mock ups of the cockpit), so I have firsthand knowledge of what
it takes to assemble electronic devices,
2) Having worked for years in the shipping business, I know what it costs to ship products from China in 40'
containers over the ocean,
3) the amount of advertising that was done,
4) the cost of software development (my current line of work),
5) cost of prototyping, packaging, product manuals, etc.