Apple, Orange to sell unlocked iPhone in France

[col3man]

Dunno if forum_members saw this one..

How fast can we say "greymarket?"

Apple and its wireless partner in France, Orange, will sell an unlocked version of the iPhone, a spokeswoman for Orange confirmed to the International Herald Tribune. The unlocked iPhone will carry a premium price, although the companies did not say how much more it would be.


Apple is being forced to sell an unlocked iPhone in France because of a French law that forbids bundling the sale of a mobile phone and a mobile operator. As announced yesterday, iPhones locked to the Orange network will cost e399 or about US$565.

iPhone users in the United States clearly want an unlocked iPhone — as soon as the device was released on June 29, work began to break into the device freeing it from the AT&T network.

Shortly after hackers were successful in unlocking the iPhone, Apple issued a stern warning to customers saying that unlocked phones could become inoperable when future updates were applied to the phone. Three days later, with iPhone Update 1.1.1, that is exactly what happened.

Apple announced plans to enter the mobile market in the UK and Germany last month. iPhones will start selling in both of those countries on November 9, 2007 — neither will be able to sell an unlocked iPhone.

[greenjbhsd]

Keep in mind that the law over there makes it such that a phone cannot be locked to a carrier beyond a 6 month introductory period, which is the rub (and I am saying it in super summary form).

While they will sell an unlocked version, don't expect it to be affordable. The laws do not speak to price of the device, only ties to a contract. So 500 for a contract phone and how much for an unlocked one? 2000$? 1000$? who knows at this point.

[Tinman]

Rumors I have heard place it at around $900 US for the unlocked version.

HOWEVER... Once someone buys one and dissects how it was unlocked I suspect it will be figured out how to unlock locked iPhones in a similar manner. And if that happens it would seem to follow that such phones are brick-proof (at least compared to what happened after the 1.1.1 update).



--
Mike

[greenjbhsd]

Wow, check out this fair usage information on data transfer from Orange:
http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,...331855b,00.htm

The unlocked phone might sell better then the locked version if there are carriers that are not so lean on the max data applied to fair use.