I’ve used a lot of mobile devices. Its been a while since I’ve used, let alone chose to own a locked device of any kind and this weekend confirms just how messed up the current system is. If the device was unlocked those of us with problems would have simply been on our way enjoying the experience instead of banging our heads into the wall in frustration.
In my recent experience, I take the current SIM I’ve been using and place it in my new phone. I’ve done this about a dozen times over the past few years and never had an issue – the phones just work and my previous account settings are nicely transferred as well.
There are likely plans to do OTA stuff we don’t yet have information on, but until then it seems the iPhone aside from Visual Voicemail has no carrier specific requirements. I can’t think why Apple actually wanted to even get the iPhone mapped into a carrier. In fact, I’d bet that if the product was spread around multiple carriers they’d be selling even more than they already are. Granted Apple would have to have multiple SKUs to manage both CDMA and GSM varieties, but that seems easy enough for Palm and if they can manage you know Apple could.
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Amen. I really wish that Apple would’ve followed Nokia’s (or Sony Ericsson’s) example. I really admire those two companies for selling their phones (or some of them) unlocked. I am fed up with carriers lording all of this power over cell phone manufacturers, forcing them to disable features that would be hugely beneficial to customers, but would allow said customers to work around the restrictions and/or business model that the cell phone providers have in place. It’s likely that Bluetooth technology could’ve enjoyed a bigger role in cell phone users’ usage if companies like Verizon hadn’t blocked simple features like file transfer over BT.
If Apple had the power to basically bully AT&T into agreeing to their terms, surely they could’ve just sold the iPhone totally unlocked, and thus would’ve gotten more people on T-Mobile (at least, if they were going to stick to GSM only) to buy in, since they wouldn’t have had to break their contracts to do so?
I guess, Apple went to the carriers and asked them, how much they would pay, if they’d get the iPhone exclusively and AT&T bid the most…