Passing of the torch: here are my iPhone 3G and me in the eyes of my retired HTC Touch, now reduced to life as a Chinese dictionary.
(Credit: Graham Webster)All year, I've been using an HTC Touch as my telephone. But now, having just moved back to the United States, I found it so hard to get a reasonable deal for service with this unlocked GSM smartphone that I decided there was little reason not to get an iPhone.
This was not an easy decision. I'm about to begin life as a graduate student, so money will be tight. I already had a pretty decent smartphone, which I'd bought in China because it was Windows Mobile and could run Pleco, the undisputed master of mobile Chinese-English dictionaries.
And I was nervous about the iPhone 3G, despite its superior aesthetics and preferable interface, having heard so much about performance problems. For a few reasons, I decided to go with iPhone anyway.
The primary reason is that AT&T and T-Mobile, the main GSM carriers in the United States, did not seem to want to give me a no-contract plan with a good data option. Both wanted a two-year contract just for opening the accounts, according to their Web sites. I had assumed one could just bring in a phone and go month to month.
The U.S. carriers seem to be using a tactic that Beijing-based tech industry consultant Mark Natkin said is the favored strategy of Chinese carriers to retain customers. Rather than lock the phones, which would be easily unlocked in Chinese electronics markets, providers are requiring contracts for decent services. Responding to my speculation on whether China Mobile iPhones will be unlocked, Natkin, who is managing director of Marbridge Consulting, explained:
Rather than locking phones, China's operators have been moving increasingly towards locking customers into a long-term contract that comes with a phone sourced by the operator. In San Francisco, a quick walk down Market Street from the AT&T Wireless store, you can get your mobile phone unlocked for $20 in about 10 minutes. So in China, where the labor is much cheaper, not many phones would stay locked unless the SIM card was fully embedded.
The fact that this tactic seemed to be in action in the U.S. made it only slightly more expensive for me to get an iPhone, so I went for it.
This could foretell a model for Apple to end its devotion to single carriers. If Apple were willing to let multiple mobile companies sell the iPhone and provide service for it in the United States, each company could sell them at a price like the $200 to $300 we see for the 3G and nail us with high-priced data plans. Especially if users wanted to use services like MobileMe's push e-mail feature (supposing it were to work), there could be specific, iPhone-only plans. Why can't this be done with multiple carriers?
This model wouldn't be new. The same phones have been available at multiple carriers for many years. They are sold at below-cost prices and the carriers make up for that with service contracts. What I want to know is:
• Why do we need to lock phones if we can lock users into contracts?
• If my phone is locked to your expensive service, why do you need to nail me with a contract?
Couldn't the industry get along with one or the other coercive tactic?
Unlocked, semi-legal iPhones have proliferated in China since Apple failed to make a deal with a Chinese carrier. Now that AT&T will offer an expensive solution for those wanting iPhones in the United States on different carriers, will the unlocked market be...unlocked?
For $699, the new 16GB iPhone 3G will be available to non-AT&T customers in the United States. As I've reported, China Mobile and Apple are now in talks that are more likely to bear fruit. This post is based on a few questions I really can't answer. Let's have them.
- Will truly unlocked iPhones still be available in China? I put a lot of faith in the efforts of crackers to defeat whatever Apple comes up with, but I would personally be wary of getting an unlocked iPhone that might not accept upgrades, mostly because iPhone software needs upgrades. For example, I've been baffled--while using friends' phones--by the apparent impossibility of sending a vCard from one address book to another person using iPhone's mail application.
- If the China Mobile-Apple deal goes through, is it possible that "legitimate" iPhones will be locked to China Mobile and useless in other countries? Would top-market Chinese users, who are used to switching SIM cards at will and picking up multiple SIMs at home and in other countries (as well as in Hong Kong), stand for this? I don't know the technology well enough to answer this one.
- Does Apple sell unlocked iPhones anywhere on Earth? If so, I want one.
- And since I'm not an expert in cell phone fees, but know AT&T has raised prices for iPhone 3G service plans (and presumably for the large cost in rolling out the 3G network), is it worth $400 to get out of its clutches over two years and take on a reasonable plan with another GSM carrier in the United States? If you divide $400 by 24 months, a person would only need to find a plan that is $17/month cheaper. That doesn't seem absurd, given the $70/month plus SMS cost of the starting AT&T plan.
- And here's one for U.S. users. If you could buy a phone for much cheaper that was unlocked, but had to be semi-legally or illegally brought from China, would that scare off people concerned about product quality?
I'm going to e-mail one or two experts to see if I can get these questions answered, but in the meantime, feel free to speak up.
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