“To say that Apple has too much to lose in allowing iPhones to be hacked [unlocked from AT&T] is a severe misconception,” Don Reisinger blogs for CNET.
“The rationale for that viewpoint seems to make sense: Apple is getting a cut of every service plan, and with millions of users, the revenue benefits are nothing to scoff at. But what it loses sight of is Apple’s real intention,” Reisinger writes.
Steve Jobs “knew that by making the iPhone exclusive, he was losing out on a significant market of people both home and abroad and his vision for the future of Apple included those that were left out. But alas, the exclusivity deal wasn’t that hard to swallow. He, like all of us, knew that people would immediately start to hack the iPhone and unlock it for use on T-Mobile and other services abroad. And once that happened, the benefits could far outweigh the costs of such a hack,” Reisinger writes.
“Apple can’t stop anyone from unlocking a cell phone, and to be honest, I don’t think it really cares,” Reisinger writes. “Apple is playing this recent iPhone unlocking news perfectly. If it overreacted and stopped the hack, it could stymie its future revenue gains, but if it endorses such a maneuver, it effectively leaves AT&T out to dry. Isn’t it ironic that AT&T lawyers went knocking on the doors of the hackers while Apple lawyers sipped tea at home?”
Full article here.
It’s long been obvious to most that iPhone would be unlocked; it was just a matter of time. So, of course, Jobs knew, after all, he’s like Josh Waitzkin on steroids: so many moves ahead it’s scary. Whether Jobs wants an unlocked iPhone or not, only he could say, but watching him toy with doofuses like Microsoft’s Ballmer, Verizon’s Denny Strigl, Real’s Glaser, et al. is so fun it borders on the criminal.
Steve Jobs plays the marketing game like a chess master.
Sipping tea…
Until lawyers of AT&T will let them drink coffee.
But will at&t pressure Apple to alter the phone so hacks don’t work anymore?
Be good to research the agreement that apple and at&t made to begin with.. perhaps there is a fine print in the deal that at&t didnt see. By letting the hackers unlock the iPhone and use them on other network would maybe prompt the other companies to sign on the deal with apple?
Like I said earlier today, I don’t think Apple cares because an iPhone sale is an iPhone sale.
But is Job’s hoping the phone gets cracked to run everywhere and anywhere? Maybe not, but it does fit in with an attempt to break the back of telcos telling customers what they need and want.
US citizens and to a similar degree, Canadian citizens cede way too much power to corporations, and allow them way too much influence.
Isn’t it ironic that AT&T lawyers went knocking on the doors of the hackers while Apple lawyers sipped tea at home?
This Don Reisinger blogger knows little about what goes on behind Apple’s doors. Just because he can hit “Publish” on his blog software and have the word “CNET” appear somewhere on the page does not mean he has any better grasp on the situation than you or I.
In actuality, if Apple and AT&T are working “together” on this, why would they need to send two sets of lawyers, when one would be enough? Or perhaps if we had seen Apple’s lawyers on the case and AT&Ts; sitting back supposedly sipping tea, then might we draw some other equally obscure conclusion like AT&T is thinking of buying T-Mobile anyway so what to they care.’
You get my point, I hope. This guy has no clue. And neither do I.
OK, that’s cleared. Now could we get someone to tell us Steve’s master plan on the rapidly falling AAPL?
Buying opportunity or run for your life?
Thanks for any insight.
I think apple will fullfil their agreement with at&t…. and stop the hacks from go forth. If apple didn’t care, why they suggest their firm. If apple doesn’t stop this hack, and back stab AT&T…. what future companies would work with apple. Which foreign carriers would want to do business with apple if this hack goes on. right now, companies want to work with apple bacause they want to not force like MS or IBM….
The reason I think highly of steve job… the way he does business. if you dont’ want to develop software for apple then apple will do it… etc… but we will do it better…
this from CNET which HATES APPLE….CNET always trash talk on apple….
Considering that unlocking the iPhone helps very little in the USA, I don’t see Steve Jobs behind this. And I thought that it was illegal to have locked phones in Europe anyway. So because of the sorry state of cellular networks in the USA, unlocking the iPhone is a complete waste of time.
“But will at&t pressure Apple to alter the phone so hacks don’t work anymore?”
Yeah, I’m thinking they might.
“OK, that’s cleared. Now could we get someone to tell us Steve’s master plan on the rapidly falling AAPL?”
The stock has just pretty much corrected with the overall market. The fundamentals are still the same, and are strong, the housing subprime bubble has weighed on AAPL more than AAPL has by itself.
Still looks strong I think. If Apple were stumbling I’d be worried but they aren’t, they are firing on all cylinders.
Interesting, very interesting. I seem to recall Mr. Jobs knows about unlocking phones, having once upton a time helped device a magic box and hack work-around so people could avoid long-distance charges.
@Buy or Sell
You need a window office.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” /> There’s a credit meltdown outside, the housing market is just beginning to crash, the DOW dropped 280 points TODAY, dogs and cats are sleeping together, morons are frivelously suing Apple for common-knowledge “lock-in” to one carrier, glossy iMac screens are blinding people, …..
Apple has over $12 BILLION cash in the bank and NO debt. And numerous product announcements days or weeks away that everyone’s foaming at the mouth to hear about. Wash, rinse and repeat for the next five years.
For me, accumulate AAPL on dips like this. Take profits on upswings if you’re comfortable with that. Good luck!
MW= “building”, as in wealth.
@Ted
Good catch. I bet Woz is in a back room with a pile of iPhones right now!
When he’s done, the cracked iPhones get a blue paint job. Walla!! The new “blue box”!!
Steve Jobs is omnipotent. Everyday I sacrifice an ignorant Windows user in his glorious name. They squeal like a monkey being bashed with a chair. Very satisfying.
AT&T’s lawyers went after the hackers because they are violating AT&T’s rights under the iPhone activation agreement, EULA, or whatever other agreements you want to cite. Apple doesn’t have a vested interest in stopping hackers from hacking the iPhone to work on other mobile phone networks because Apple is not the cellular service provider. That’s why AT&T’s lawyers are involved.
It amazes me how some “journalists” read conspiracy into every little action, non-action or omission. This also shows the problem with “journalistic blogs”: there’s no reporting done here, just opinion tossed out. The problem is that it looks like a news piece because it’s on a CNET blog.
IMO, Apple DO care about these hacks, the same way that they care whether Fairplay is hacked or not (a similar argument could be made that Apple don’t own the music) – any hacks can be used as arguments why a European or Asian cellular should not assign a portion of the cellular network profits to Apple: if Apple cannot guarantee iPhone exclusivity, why should the cellular provider agree to an outragous license deal?
I recall that many European countries considers that SIM locked cellulars are illegal or that it’s illegal to enforce locked cellulars after the first year or two years of contract with the phone network. And remember that even in US, there is nothing illegal to unlock yourself your mobile phone.
With prices of iPhone going down in 18 months, Apple should sell them for same prices then now, without the actual AT&T scheme and with no SIM card in the slot. Remember that Apple didn’t soldered the AT&T SIM cards on the slot of the iPhone…
In 1974, Steve and Woz’s first business was building “blue boxes” to hack free long-distance calls via AT&T.
Kinda ironical.
unlocking should be fair game–at&t is allowed to push other music download services, other pda-phones etc–why should iphone consumers be tethered to just at&t?
The only exclusivity should be sales being limited to apple/at&t and apple SUPPORT of at&t services.
Am I able to post now? Can you hear me now? Oh good!
I think that Apple is only interested in selling iPhones. They might get a small percentage from AT&T’s service cost (if so, not much). The major income is of the sale itself. Once the check clears, Apple isn’t interested in what the iPhone customer is going to do with it. Outside of keeping up with the firmware and OS updates, what else can they do?
Mobile networks like AT&T have to deal with hackers unlocking their phones all the time. They are accustomed to dealing with those kinds of people and have lawyers that specialize in going after them.
That’s why AT&T’s lawyers are going after these iPhone hackers and not Apple’s lawyers.
“But will at&t pressure Apple to alter the phone so hacks don’t work anymore?”
I doubt it. There is no point. It will just be unlocked/hacked/cracked (whatever you want to call it) over and over and over. It will lower Apple’s credibility as an expert product designer. It will also make it look like a war between the young liberators of locked devices and Apple. I hardly suspect they want this. Things will just go on as usual. Apple updates there product life cycle almost once every year, and the iPhone will likely be the same. Next time it may be a little harder to unlock.
-John
It’s not (yet) in Apple’s best interest for the iPhone to be hacked, as they make a portion of the revenue garnered from monthly AT&T service.
This reminds me of all of that babble about Jobs “wanting” OS X to be hacked when Apple transitioned to Intel. The people who write this stuff don’t understand Jobs; he likes tight systems, systems that he can readily manipulate.
Hahaha… you Apple asslickers are so pathetic it’s laughable.
First it was, “It’s been over a month since the iPhone was released and the hackers are still wasting their time trying to hack the iPhone… they’ll never succeed, it’s an Apple product! It runs OSX!”
Then it was, “Ooh, some seventeen-year-old has hacked the iPhone to work with T-Mobile… he should be arrested, he belongs in jail, one software update and all that work goes out the window, no visual voicemail, getting ready for a lawsuit from Apple, blah blah blah…”
Today it’s, “Oh yes, it was all part of Steve’s master plan. Of course the iPhone was designed to be unlocked. Steve has done it again! He’s like… he’s like a chessmaster, always 5 moves ahead!”
Again, just… pathetic.
Comment from: The Great Apple Fanboy Massacre
That entire post is what you call a “Straw Man”. GAFM creates a distorted or patently false set of events and then attacks those events as indicative of the group he wishes to criticise.
So not everyone is completely useless. They can always serve as a bad example