Pajama Entrepreneur

Orange, Apple’s exclusive partner in France, is required to sell the iPhone unlocked, if requested by a customer. The reason: French law prohibits the tying of a device to a cellular service. Operators can sell phones for a lower price if they subsidize it, but if the customer just wants the phone, they have to sell it to him or her, even at a higher price. Read my post on Muniwireless.

Law professor Tim Wu says there’s nothing illegal about an iPhone user unlocking his phone plus it’s so much fun:

The good news is that my iPhone works flawlessly. With my existing T-Mobile account, I get 1,300 more minutes of talk time than I would have received from AT&T for a comparably priced plan; I also now have a phone that I can take to Asia and Europe. I avoided a $200 termination fee, AT&T’s activation fee, and having to wait for AT&T to port my existing number. On the downside, I don’t have AT&T’s visual voicemail, and I have to stay away from Apple’s software upgrades, which might brick the phone. But it’s easy to download third-party apps, like iPong. Best of all, my geek friends are impressed.

Read the rest of Professor Wu’s article on Slate. In the meantime, Apple’s most recent attempt (version 1.1.1) to turn its customers’ iPhones into $500 paperweights has failed. Hackers have figured out a way to hack that as well, giving users, once again, the freedom to user their phones however they want to.

UPDATE: Dewayne Hendricks emailed me to say that hackers have read access to the filesystem on the iPhone, but not complete write access. They’re very close though. Click here to visit the iPhone hacker site.

iPhone users who are hoping to use the device for more than just voice calls will be clamoring for Wi-Fi everywhere when they find out how slow EDGE really is. Thank heavens for Wi-Fi! This article in Information Week says:

Wi-Fi is even more important for iPhone users in the U.K. where, according to media reports, the exclusive iPhone provider O2 covers just 30% of the British population. To help make up for the skimpy coverage, subscribers will be offered free connections to Wi-Fi provider the Cloud, which operates more than 7,500 Wi-Fi hotspots in the U.K.

T-Mobile has a lot of hotspots around the world and in Germany, so Apple’s choice of partner in that country is wise. However, will a T-Mobile Germany user be able to seamlessly log onto a T-Mobile hotspot in San Francisco? We shall see . . . .

Ending the speculation, the CEO of Orange (France Telecom’s mobile subsidiary) revealed that Apple has chosen Orange as its exclusive partner in France. The price of the iPhone isn’t known yet but it will be sold in France starting November. Orange joins O2 (UK) and T-Mobile (Germany) as Apple’s partners in Europe.

It’s a dark, gloomy, rainy day in Amsterdam and I need a good laugh. This came in just in time to cure my blues (from Network World): Apple CEO Steve Jobs said Tuesday that it’s his company’s job to stymie hackers who try to unlock the iPhone — the first time the company has officially said it would fight attempts to use the popular device on unauthorized networks.

Why is this funny?

(1) Assuming I am an iPhone owner, which I am not, it’s MY phone. I bought it. The cellular operator isn’t even subsidizing it so I have every right to choose what I download onto the phone, how I use it, etc. When it leaves the store, Mr. Jobs has no right to tell me what the heck I am going to use it for and how. I can flush it right down the toilet, stomp on it, grind it into a thousand little pieces, it’s none of his damn business. He’s got his money, he should shut up and be happy.

(2) The hacker community “owns” the iPhone. Whatever fix Apple tries to apply to the device, the hacker community will come up with an update of its own to neutralize Apple’s “fix”. Apple is wasting time and money, and annoying its customers.

(3) Steve Jobs added: “People will try to break in, and it’s our job to stop them breaking in.” Wait - it’s my phone. I decided who to let in, not Apple. Apple’s “fixes” are intrusive. It’s Apple who’s breaking into MY phone.

But I don’t have to worry about this . . . for now because I don’t have an iPhone. I refuse to buy it unless it works on 21st century mobile networks - like 3G for a start.

Deutsche Telekom and Apple announced that T-Mobile, DT’s mobile subsidiary, will be selling the iPhone in Germany starting November 9 for 399 EUR ($550). In the US, Apple sells the iPhone for $399. There are enterprising individuals in the US selling the iPhone unlocked for under $450 (plus shipping) to anyone around the world. As I wrote in my earlier post on the iPhone’s launch in the UK, there’s no 3G, only the truly dreadful EDGE (the equivalent of dial-up on mobile networks).

T-Mobile announced it will be selling the iPhone in Austria, the Netherlands, Hungary and Croatia. Since T-Mobile bought my mobile operator, Orange Netherlands, I guess I will be getting a marketing pitch from them on the iPhone in the near future. I’m not buying it until it comes with 3G, possibly next year.

If there’s only one reason not to buy the iPhone when it launches in the UK in November, it’s the insulting price: $539 as opposed to $399 in the US. Adding to the insult is the fact that they will sell it locked, that is, you have to get a subscription via UK operator, O2. And there’s no 3G functionality in the phone. No, you have to be happy with crappy EDGE. Hey, why not sell a computer that works only on dial-up service and sell it to people who have broadband?

My prediction is that the iPhone will not be as successful as it is in the US. Residents of the UK should simply buy the phone from a US retailer and unlock it via one of the many iPhone hacks floating around the Internet today. If you buy it full price and lock yourself into an O2 contract, you are REALLY stupid.