[Bryanb03]

OK the iPhone isn't the only phone soully tied to cingular. There a number of phones that are just offered on Cingular. If you don't like cingular don't get the iPhone. I cannot believe Apple is actually getting sued for something this stupid. I have a Sony Ericson w810 and I am almost certain that it is only offered on Cingular so i guess i can sue Sony for not having their phone on a different network. Sprint could of had the iPhone on their network but they turned apple away fyi.

[rgreen4]

And of course, the fact that the customer signed a binding contract that stated the phone can only be used on AT&T networks, and only to customers who live in areas with AT&T Mobility service is to be completly ignored.

[alfredfreitas]

I am not sure that apple sold a phone with a contract stating that the user can only use the iphone on at&t. I have not seen a contract nor has anyone quoted same on this forum. However, as stated earlier, if I bought a car that required I use a certain brand of gasoline and the manufacturer disabled my vehicle I would be upset and may sue if such action was designed to intentionally permanently damage my car. Complaining to the mfg is one way to evoke action, but quite frankly, often a lawsuit is the only real tool one has to get the message out and force manufacturers to really look at their actions and policies. Mfg's have forced EULA on us for some time, often at the expense of custom, common sense, and common law. I know I could live in a cave and not purchase new technology. However, it may not be in the interest of the greater good to allow manufacturers to force the public to accept contracts by adhesion or unconscionable contracts that stifle inovation or reasonable use.

[Bryanb03]

I think this should be settled at the consumer end. It goes like this, "quit crying about and if you want an iPhone get Cingular if you do not want Cingular then thats tough you can not get the iPhone." I mean Apple and Cingular probably see unlocking this phone as some type of hack so they are not going to support it. Unless you go out and buy the phone with straight cash ( meaning you didn't get a contract price ) then the phone partially belongs to them anyways. I think unlocking a phone might possibly void some warranties as well. I guess I can sue Microsoft for taking Windows XP off the market as well and pretty much forcing the public to use Vista. I do not understand your point alfred on the gas and car thing by the way. maybe you can reclarify your point.

[jmontoro]

APPLE LOSES THIS ONE

[jmontoro]

The People have already fought and won this battle!

Maybe if PCW would cover some intellectual property news, everyone would know about it.

On Novemeber 27, 2006, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was modifed to permit people to bypass the technology of locking a cell phone to a particular carrier. Here is the link.
http://www.copyright.../71fr68472.html

Am I sure? Yes I helped modify the copyright law.
Joe Montoro
President

[Bryanb03]

If this is the case then how does Sprint get away with not allowing unlocked sim card phones. Is it because of the hardware limitation. If you purchase the phone using some type of 2 year contract deal your not suppose to unlock it so did the two parties have a contract agreement or did they "own" the phone. But as far as third party apps are concerned why would it be illegal. They do not want you to use them. If you do not like it do not buy the phone.
www.donglefree.com
what the heck is that site. Looks like someone just used a template out of Dreamweaver CS3. lol. But who knows.

[jmontoro]

Bryan, your 2 year contract is a service contract not a hardware contract. You bought the phone and as long as you fullfill your service agreement, you should be able to take that phone to any compatible carrier. How does Sprint get away with it? Because no one has challenged it. The DMCA modification was passed almost a year ago and sadly, hardly anyone knows about it.

As for the donglefree.com web site, that is my site. I went to the copyright office and got the DMCA changed to allow people to replace their hardware lock or dongles. Why would they want to? Because dongles are the little devices that either go on the printer port or usb and prevent an application from running. So if the company that made your $12k CAD/CAM program went out of business and no longer supports the program, you could still run that product on other operating systems if the lock failed. As for the design of the site, yup it's a template but not from Dreamweaver. Wishing I had more time to redo it.

[smax013]

jmontoro said:

Bryan, your 2 year contract is a service contract not a hardware contract. You bought the phone and as long as you fullfill your service agreement, you should be able to take that phone to any compatible carrier. How does Sprint get away with it? Because no one has challenged it. The DMCA modification was passed almost a year ago and sadly, hardly anyone knows about it.

As for the donglefree.com web site, that is my site. I went to the copyright office and got the DMCA changed to allow people to replace their hardware lock or dongles. Why would they want to? Because dongles are the little devices that either go on the printer port or usb and prevent an application from running. So if the company that made your $12k CAD/CAM program went out of business and no longer supports the program, you could still run that product on other operating systems if the lock failed. As for the design of the site, yup it's a template but not from Dreamweaver. Wishing I had more time to redo it.

To my knowledge (and I am not DMCA expert), the revisions to the DMCA only make it legal for a customer to unlock a phone. It does not make companies like Sprint unlock the phones for you nor does it prevent companies like Sprint from making it difficult to unlock a phone or to relock the phone. It purely makes it so that you cannot be prosecuted for unlocking the phone. Prior to that, you could in theory be prosecuted for trying to or actually unlock your phone.



Thus, Sprint, AT&, Verizon, etc are under no obligation to unlock the phone. And as I understand it, they can actively take measures to prevent you from unlocking it. Sprint phones are harder because they DON'T use SIM cards at all. All the network information is in the phone itself, not in a seperate card.



Personally, I believe that locking phones is stupid on the companies part, but I do understand why they do it. It is a way to get people to use their sesrvice...i.e. they have "exclusive" phones. So, if you want that phone, then you HAVE to use them. Personally, I would focus on making my network the best network with the best service and support and you would not need such gimmicks.



As to the iPhone, once you hack something, you are on your own. If you buy a car and don't like the fuel engine in it and replace it, your warranty is toast. For any product, if you modify it beyond what it is designed to do, then your warranty is toast. If you don't like that, then don't modify it. As to "bricking" of iPhones, if it was done deliberately, then Apple is potentially in trouble...assuming that the people suing can PROVE that it was done deliberately. If your phone got bricked because you modified the OS running on the phone, then a potential side effect is that an update could completely corrupt the OS and "brick" it. After all, if you apply an update that is designed to modify specific things in the OS to add features or fix bugs, but those specific things have been changed by a hack, then how is Apple to know what changes where made and how those changes will affect the upgrade process? Now, if you phone has been "bricked", you should have a way to "reset" it back to an original OS state. It is after all a small computer. Apple should not have to HELP you with that, but they should have some sort of default way to "reset" the phone. My Treo can have a hard reset done to it, which turns it back to like when I first turned it on. The iPhone should have some similar ability. The exception would be firmware updates. A firmware update, in and of itself, can cause SERIOUS problems if somethign goes wrong during the upgrade process. Thus, if someone has hacked the firmware and there is a firmware update that then completely screws things up, then you might be SOL and Apple might not be responsible for having a "reset" option for that.



In the end, it is your right to do what you want with a phone (or other device), but if you do something that it was not designed for, then it is also YOUR responsibility to accept the consequences of your actions. Do what you wish, but be prepared to deal with potential that you damage something and create an expensive paper weight.

[RastaMon]

{quote}On Novemeber 27, 2006, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was modifed to permit people to bypass the technology of locking a cell phone to a particular carrier. Here is the link.
http://www.copyright.../71fr68472.html
{quote}

All that legislation does is ensure that those who unlock the iPhone for use on T-Mobile and other GSM networks cannot be prosecuted for doing so. It does not require Apple support the iPhone on non-AT&T networks.

[pamnbob97]

t-mobile has other phones that work almost like the iphone . why not sue verizon wireless or the better one to sue is sprint . come on people get with the program . a company that makes a cell phone should be able to gto to any carrier that they wish pure and simple. i agree with milduser and rastamon . this lawsuit is going no where . now if you bought the iphone with a contract and wanted to unlock it for another carrier you are stupid very stupid . you should of just bought the iphone outright and went to the carrier of your choice

[ipzedge2]

people forget to respect the meaning of privet property. If companies sign a deal like apple and AT&T Networks the owners of each resources have the right to do what they want with the phone and network, the customer agrees if they read the TOS before buying the product/s or Service .
but as with a company that i am a Affiliate for, plans to puts ups there own wireless network
that uses the blue tooth tech to bypass other networks and let cellphone owners have On-Net
call for free and Off-Net world calling for 1-3 cents a min. then it's OK. with Internet speeds of 1.5MB up and down for only $29.90 a month no contract then that's fair but if Apple the the Cellphone MFG don't want to not allow the blue tooth tech to work then that ok if it's in the TOS the customer need to know what is allowed to work and not allowed to work or locked on or out. If the customer sees something they don't like buy it from another company.

[divertigger]

This is not a frivolous lawsuit. If, as is likely, Apple's update was design to brick unlocked phones, then it was done maliciously.

In addition, most of the rest of the world does not allow phones to be locked to a carrier and there are no extended contracts. service is month to month just like telephone, cable, internet, etc is in the US.

Even the FCC has recognized that the US carriers are playing dirty by mandating that the new 700 mhz frequencies being auctioned this month will allow all devices to be connected, not locked to a single carrier.

Our phone and internet technology is behind the rest of the developed world and we pay many times more for worse service.

[m509272]

Another BS lawsuit. People bought the phone knowing what the deal was. If you unlocked it than don't upgrade the firmware/software. If you want to upgrade don't expect Apple to honor your changes to their firmware/software. They are under no obligation other than to provide updates that work properly on their prior unaltered versions of their firmware/software. They simply can't be responsible for what you did to your phone. If I significantly alter my car's engine the manufacturer is no longer going to honor the warranty, plain and simple just like in this case. You changed the "engine" and they simply aren't responsible for anything after that if you choose to load firmware on an altered iPhone.

As far as the rest of the world. Check what they pay for that iPhone in Europe vs U.S. You can't have both.

[divertigger]

First, unlocking the phone isn't altering the engine, or the actual physcial make-up of the phone.

Second, let's look at the price of the phones. What did they start out selling for here, and what do they sell for in Europe?

Cost was not a consideration in the discussion for two reasons. If iphones were available on all networks, then you could still get the discount by signing an extended service contract.

Second, I bet many, if not most would be willing to pay the extra for an unlocked phone supported by the company. It is no different than someone buying an unlocked or world phone, and using it on any network they wished. Unlocked phones, without any long term commitments on the contracts do tend to cost a bit more..but well worth it by being able to jump from service to service if not satisfied with the service. Again.. this is a different issue than whether the equipment should be locked or not, and whether unlocking the phone..using a portiion of the programming of the device already in the device, should void any warranty.

[m509272]

Actually I intended to reply to the initial entry but no matter. Actually the engine analogy is pretty accurate in my opinion. Yes, there is no physical change going on here. It's very much like a car. People "chip" their cars by changing the manufacturer's programming chips to alter various engine parameters. If a dealer spots one of these chips it's bye bye warranty because it's running the engine contrary to what the manufacturer intended.

People bought the phone knowing full well what the deal was. If people are unlocking their phone they are fully aware of the potential consequences, at least most of them are. I don't disagree with the unlocking, I disagree with people expecting future updates from Apple to work without risk after they altered a standard iPhone. Apple is under no obligation to provide updates that are going to be compatible with altered iPhones since there can possibly be 1000's of combinations of what someone has done. By the way I don't own any Apple products nor any stock. I do however like to hack stuff and under no circumstances would I expect this. If I had a hacked iPhone I would wait quite awhile before doing a firmware update so the talented folks out there can iron out the kinks.

Even with the original phone price, the European price difference is far from a little more. At 749 Euros that's >$1100 plus probably high VAT

After German phone carrier T-Mobile has recently started selling the unlocked iPhone for the ridiculous price of 999 Euros, now also Orange in France published their price for the unlocked version of the Apple cellphone: 749 Euros.
Luckily for Germans, the EU is a customs union, so they can pretty
easily order it in France and have it shipped to Germany — even the
higher shipping won’t make up for the 250 Euro difference.

[divertigger]

If you've looked at the prices between phones offered here and i Canada, Europe, etc, you'll know that it doesn't equate to an exhange rate on dollars. Likely, the unlocked phones in the US would be in the $499 to $649 range.. perhaps less based on quanities shipped, competition, etc.

Look at the cost of say an HP pda/phone, or do the conversions from Canadian dollars to US. :)

Again.. not changing the chip that controls locking. It is a software option, the sort found on most phones that enable locked in the US and unlocked in the rest of the world.

The chip you are referring to is meant to be changed out for different networks.

These are nothing at all like changing out the timing chips that increase the revolutions of the cam, pistons, etc increasing friction, heat, wear, etc.

Software and electronics do not function the same as moving mechanical parts.

[m509272]

Almost looks like our own conversation :-) According to the NY Times over the life of a two-year contract, Apple stands to earn up to $432 so you pretty much have to add that to the current cost. Granted it would be money upfront so perhaps $400 based on low interest rates so I think you're looking at more like $800 or more. Just a quick check shows an unlocked Nokia N95 8GB is like $750 which in the US has nowhere near the hype level.

[divertigger]

Apples stands to earn.. but that is not the cost of the unit.. that is from part of the service agreement with ATT?

Might want to check out bell.ca for their phone prices. They give price options from no contract/prepay to 3 year..Better phones are in the $400 to $600 range with no contract. :)

As is the HP, as are many other unlocked phones in the US. These are phone/equipment prices.. not the price of the equipment plus what the carrier has agreed to pay a company during the service contract. :)

[samiam914]

The arugment can be both ways a) Dont buy Iphone if you want to use other carriers b) Some sort of collusion here between AT&T and Apple.
Wait till Europeans slap a multi billion dollar law suit on Apple for this, in coming years. European countries have been targeting American companies, they fined Microsoft hundreds of millions of $$ and trying desperately to rake in money from Intel. Ireland for example changed laws to rake in hundreds of millions from Microsoft, they have no inovation, but they know how to rake in Ameircan $$$$.