Unlocked iPhones in Germany and France still locked, kind of
By Will Park on Friday, December 14th, 2007 at 9:05 pm PST In Apple, Devices, Orange, T-Mobile, iPhone
It turns out that those “unlocked” iPhones from France’s Orange and Germany’s short-lived unlocked iPhone offering from T-Mobile weren’t really all they were cracked up to be. You see, we had cracked them up to be truly unlocked iPhones capable of surfing any network in the world. Truly unlocked iPhones would have been an international iPhone fan-boy’s wet-dream. Alas, Apple had an Ace up their sleeve - all those unlocked iPhones are apparently still locked to their country of origin.
With Germany’s T-Mobile having recently resumed sales of exclusive, locked iPhones, France’s Orange is the world’s only source of Apple-sanctioned “unlocked” iPhones. Unfortunately, enterprising iPhone users thinking about buying an unlocked Orange iPhone and using it in another country will find out the hard way that the 749 Euro unlocked iPhone won’t work outside of France. Apple likely acquiesced to France’s telecom regulations by allowing unlocking iPhones to work with any wireless operator - as long as the non-Orange network was within French borders.
Anyone out there actually make a trip to France in hopes of using a fully-operational and firmware-upgradeable iPhone in, say, the US? Our condolences to your wallet. But then again, you should have known better. Apple-unlocked iPhones sounded too good to be true, and it seems it was too good indeed.
[Via: iPhone Atlas]
December 14th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
what the F**K !!!!!
What is that greedy mofo Jobs thinking ? Maybe I didn’t get it right, but did it EVER occur to little Stevey, that there might actually be french people who bought their unlocked I-phone in France, that occasionally leave their country ?
This whole I-phone marketing thing has gone from greedy coup to unholy obscene perversity.
How can anyone in their right minds ever buy an I-Phone ( even if it’s a nice phone ) or any other Apple products ? I certainly will not.
December 17th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
[...] a little update to our previous report (from iPhone Atlas) that iPhones unlocked by France’s Orange may still be locked to carriers [...]
December 17th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
[...] a little update to our previous report (from iPhone Atlas) that iPhones unlocked by France’s Orange may still be locked to carriers [...]
December 18th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
[...] so first we got reports that unlocked iPhones coming out of France’s Orange network were actually only kind of [...]
December 18th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
[...] so first we got reports that unlocked iPhones coming out of France’s Orange network were actually only kind of [...]