IT Professionals

Hack Thy iPhone

Posted by on Sep 18, 2007 | 2 Comments

I would love to know what was really going on inside of Steve Jobs’ head when he rattled off the company speak as to how Apple is going to be working to curb the iPhone hacking as much as possible. Now understand that Jobs is no fool. I’m willing to bet Minis to iMacs that he could honestly careless who unlocks what from whom, just so long as the product is a hot seller and Apple is able to make its sales goals for the phone. I suspect that the move was to calm the carriers who are supposed to be ‘exclusive’ to the phone and are none to happy to seeing people taking the once exclusive product onto the airwaves from another carrier.

Should the contract providing for the exclusivity of the phone to only work with select carriers run out anytime in the near future however, I think it might be interesting to see how Apple reacts at that point. Will they even care once or if this happens? Guess only time will tell. Then again, perhaps you have some thoughts on this whole thing? What do you think will happen?

[tags]iphone, hack, Apple[/tags]

  • Kevin, The Dalles, OR

    I think the early adopter of the iPhone got screwed. If you bought one you got screwed by Apple because the price went down. If you signed an agreement to be the only carrier you got screwed because you actually thought you could keep people from doing what they wanted.

    But how screwed did the carriers really get???

    To get the iPhone you did not get a discount price for a multi-year contract. You had to have a high level of service from the provider, you had to sign a contract for a period of time and that payment will be made even if service isn’t used. Oh yeah and if the carrier sold the phone they still got/get their cut on the sale. They loose how??? Oh yeah no automatic renewal of ongoing service.

    My friend just took advantage of his $100 Apple Store credit – he spent nearly $150 on accessories for iPhone and Powerbook. So this was a “generous” move on Apple’s part how? They still got an extra $100 from my friend then they will get on any other iPhone sale going forward ($200 price reduction give $100 credit leave $100 in Apples pocket.) plus they wormed another $50 out of him as well!

    Watch out M$ Apple is starting to figure out that the customer really doesn’t care how you treat them as long as you keep telling them how good/innovative your product is (even if it isn’t true). Money still rolls in after you take advantage of them!!

    Technology is like the circus – there is another one born every minute. Suckers not circuses!

  • TechBond

    According to some reports, Apple is getting a portion of the monthly fees from AT&T’s iPhone data plans, something in the neighborhood of $3 – $8 per customer / per month. At a million iPhones, this would add between $3 and 8 million per month to Apple’s bottom line. Granted that is chump change compared to their revenue and, at best, only 3% of second quarter profits. However, this revenue-sharing plan is pure profit for Apple. Also as the number of units sold increases and assuming Apple has similar plans world-wild, it could become a very lucrative revenue stream, but only if the iPhone remains locked in to the “approved carrier”. If all this is true, then Steve Jobs may care quite a lot about “who unlocks what from whom”.