squared99

So, many analysts are eating their words about the impact the iPhone would have, opening weekend numbers were put at 500k-700k and I haven’t seen numbers updates since then. Judging by the continual buzzing on the intercyberspherenet, it’s doing alright.

I’ve been following the ‘hack’ status and there has been some progress. DVD Jon has been able to activate the wifi and ipod features without going through the At&T activation (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/04/iphone_hack/), but not the calling features with another sim.

There has been a claim that it has been done on Vodafone in the UK, but unsubstantiated (http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/07/social-hack-cla.html).

The most interesting part of this all is really the education people are getting on the whole locking issue. It is technically legal to unlock/hack your phone in the US according to the DMCA (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061124-8280.html). But that is not the same as saying the carrier can’t lock their phone. Huh? exactly. Its a business decision, not a legal one. This practice may be coming to an end though in the next spectrum (http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,134897-c,cellphones/article.html). Almost sounds too good to be true.

The iPhone launch in Europe is even more interesting to me. Practices in the market are much different there. ie will locking fly? Consumers already use their devices for a wide range of rich multimedia, so Apple wont come off so much as inventing the holy grail as they have in the US where locking really interferes with the end-user experience. Also 2.5G, lack of multi-address sms? That will be a step backwards for many.

Can Apple really launch the device as it is in Europe, or will they have to make changes? How do you think US customers are going to feel if Apple launches its unlocked 3G version for European customers? It’s going to be very interesting indeed to see what Apple does.

I actually don’t think Apple has really intended to stick with the rigid US approach, nor AT&T for that matter. AT&T is reaping as much benefit as possible before the upcoming paradigm shift in the US mobile market. Moving closer to a European approach, hopefully moving the whole world to a more global approach.