Sysadmin Field Notes

July 6, 2008

There's definite confusion our there around the no-contract prices for the iPhone.

In short, there are three prices (I'm just listing 8gb prices here)

1. Fully subsidized $199, for iPhone owners (since you never got a subsidy paid for you) and new customers.
   
2. $399 for ATT customers who haven't passed two years yet after getting their last subsidy, and
   
3. $599 for people who want to walk out with one without a contract.
   

It's the 3rd one that's confusing; if #2 has no subsidy, what is the #3 price for? Is that extra money just to pay for not having to sign a contract. In my opinion, yeah, that's the "anti-unlocker" price.

The way they tried to patch the "unlock" hole before was by limiting cash purchases and restricting # of phones. Pretty bad patch really. I'm assuming unlockers don't (or often can't) provide all the info needed to open a contract, and wouldn't want the hassle of providing that info over and over again for each new phone, then remembering to cancel the contracts. Sounds like a pain.

So you have the third, higher price point. ATT gets just as much money as they would have if you walked into the store, bought the phone, and cancelled the contract.

Between the much higher price and near-worldwide availability, I think the unlock market dwindles. Regardless, ATT or Apple now doesn't really have to care if you unlock your phone now, because they've both made their money already, without a lot of overhead.