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Originally Posted by DallasFlier
Where have you heard the claim that they'll be available unlocked? From the same article:
Cingular: We Made Apple Bend
Sounds to me like not only will they NOT be made available unlocked, but they may well be even MORE difficult to "crack" and unlock than most phones. |
You might very well be right. On the other hand, there will be a way to unlock in some countries - because of different laws relating to unlocked phones, otherwise they might very well have Apple's ass --
It might not be for another 12 months, you never know -- but eventually there will be an unlocked version (legal or greymarket or otherwise) because of certain prevailing country restrictions against permanent locked phones...
What will happen is that the world will probably have about 12 to 18 months of field days of exclusivity in certain countries, until it filters down to wider "any carrier" type of availability... Example: One carrier such as Cingular first. Then two carriers. Then open to all carriers in the country.
It will probably be a major hacker target (especially if it is a full fledged OS -- although I am pretty sure Apple has gotten it locked down military-style)
Also, I heard they will lock down on third party apps at first -- Third party applications may not be easy to make at first but it pratically begs that it eventually be possible -- otherwise Apple developers will have Apple's ass if they permanently ban third party apps. (It's my understanding it will eventually be at least possible to write "widgets"). Say, someone writes a finger-dial applet where you draw numbers with your finger on the entire screen, to dial a number -- or that someone writes a telnet terminal for iPhone, etc. After all, Apple let Opera and Google technology on these, so there got to be a way to get into the "elite" list of permitted developers at first (then Apple would eventually invite more developers to it). I believe that Apple wants to gradually vet out the iPhone architecture on the market, and gradually open it up to developers (while still being restrictive), ala Research-In-Motion-style -- you know how it used to be very hard to write Internet software for BlackBerries, and it is much easier nowadays? BlackBerry is still a very locked-down platform, but is more open than it used to be, and I predict Apple will probably eventually open its iPhone platform bit by bit... and I am sure many MacOS X software will easily recompile on the iPhone too.