According to some setteB.IT international sources the iPhone 3G will need a double activation.
One will be the carrier activation made in carrier stores or in carrier’s partners stores, exclusively.
The other activation is required by the App Store via iTunes using the iTunes Store account. It must be made using a Mac or Windows PC.
Full article (in Italian) here.
Full article (in English via Google Translation) here.
MacNN reports, “If confirmed the plan would contrast sharply with that for the original iPhone, under which people were able to simply buy an iPhone and take it home, and subsequently sign up for a carrier contract on their own time through iTunes. Apple is said to have become frustrated, however, by the number of people buying iPhones and unlocking them for an unofficial carrier, thus depriving Apple of shared revenue streams.”
Full article here.
“Yes, whine when there is a policy that makes no sense or has no reason”
The cellphone world is rolling back Steve’s attempt to do things differently. Try to buy any other subsidized phone from a cellphone carrier today and leave the store without activating it on an account, it’s not the way it works. It’s exactly Apple’s attempt to do things differently that has cost them 700,000 unlocked phones. Hardly anyone would be unlocking phones if they had to sign up for an AT&T;account when they brought each one.
Apple will be fitted into the standard model, You will have a single sign up, when you buy the phone you will need to activate it on your account (with appropriate extension) or sign up for a new account before you leave the store.
“To prevent you from unlocking, Apple forced an up-front contract of two years. Only with a signed contract, AT&T;would pay up the subsidy. That way, Apple doesn’t need to worry what was going to happen with your phone. You may as well unlock it if you wish, Apple already got their AT&T;money.”
It seems so simple in hindsight doesn’t it. Make the customer sign a contract before giving them the subsidized product. How could Steve have miscalculated so badly with the original iPhone costing Apple the revenue of 700,000 subscribers?
On the strategic and business side Steve and Apple have made a dog’s breakfast of their attempts in the PC market, with the iPhone, with Apple TV. They’re just lucky to have had the iPod cash cow to pull them through.
People….
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just to remind you, that what can be locked, can and will be unlocked somehow.
“just to remind you, that what can be locked, can and will be unlocked somehow. “
Remind Steve. Despite the fact that every platform gets hacked eventually, and the interest in hacking a platform is proportional to the number of ridiculous restrictions it’s vendor puts on it, apparently he was too dumb or arrogant to figure out that it would happen with the iPhone.