Apple has been ignoring the Linux community for years. We always knew this was coming. The only reason Apple was plying nice was because it had to to get customers. Now that it has a large market share it is behaving how companies behave.

It would not surprise me if Apple started searching their devices for media not purchased from iTunes and started disabling it. It is the next logical step

Welcome Apple people to the real world. Money talks...your piddley whining walks.

Apple is a company. They make money. If they can make a few extra bucks from screwing you over it isn't even a decision to make.

they save a few pennies by putting toxic shit in their iPhones just like Dell and Halliburton do.

APPLE IS A COMPANY. SO IS ENRON, SO IS HALIBURTON

no difference except better brandwashing

guys, I understand your position but think of it this way: let's say apple does what you say, sell the phone unlocked and follow your instructions, without the exclusive deals with telecom operators we would be left payong for a device and the ADDING all of the data features which are included by default in the iphone plans.

I think i see what apple is trying to do. They are not being "anti consumer" or "anti fanboy" just because they are not doing things the way you think. How much bitching was there when apple switched from OS9 toOSX? How many times did people say they were doing something anti their fan base? But now seven years later we all see what they were up to. Now with a brand new product in an industry that is new to a company, they are trying to change things for the better again.

Before passing judgement wait a year or so and see where this thing is going. It is way to early for this type of over sensationalized complaining.

Gday i liked this article, well done.

I'd suggest you read the TUAW article for yourselves to catch the real spirit of the piece.

"Welcome Apple people to the real world. Money talks...your piddley whining walks.

Apple is a company. They make money. If they can make a few extra bucks from screwing you over it isn't even a decision to make."

I think everyone was hoping that this company is different, thinks different.

In the end, once Apple was not the underdog anymore they became a company like millions others out there, greedy and out of touch with their customers.

Regarding the cost of data plans and phone calls on non locked environment we have excellent examples in Scandinavia (northern Europe). In many European countries SIM locking is against the law due to the fact that it restricts the consumers possibilities to choose their service provider and therefore find the most cost effective solution. OK, so you can say this is crap, nonsense etc. However, if we examine the product penetration in these markets we see that far more products are sold per capita in these markets then in locked environment. Extreme case might be Finland, which has more mobile phones then people. Also these countries have far cheaper phone calls then the locked countries due to the competition between the service providers.

Since unlocking benefits the consumers and allows better product penetration I have hard time understanding why fanboys are all fired up.

i think Apple really saw visual voicemail as the killer app on the iPhone from a marketing perspective. Safari was a tougher sell; lots of devices can do web surfing. When Apple went to the carriers and said they wanted to do visual voicemail, i think the carriers likely replied, "We have 423 trillion customers, you think you can sell a piddly couple million iPhones, and you want us to do all this work and mess around with our whole voicemail network? What's in it for US?" Exclusive rights. i don't think Apple had a choice, and if they unlock the phones, they can kiss their killer app goodbye.

@tim

I think quite the opposite. The carrier(s) that support their visual voice mail are still going to be the ones with the draw. Especially if Apple offically endorses them. But methinks, and of course this is just a guess since not even the contents of the contract are public knowledge, that Apple may have dug too deeply in their AT&T mines to get all the revenue they could out of each phone. In their negotiations they effectively committed themselves contractually to fighting unlocks so they could get a bigger cut. Which likely means they can't do a lot until the contract expires, whenever that might be.

Quote: "Don't like that? Welcome to OUR closed Ecosystem - we've modeled it on the iPhone :D"

I think this is the wrong path. Outright vulgarity, yes. Harsh or uncalled for criticism? That's life. Ask Imus or Stern. But free.

I have had posts deleted from Apple Forums for criticism of Apple. Not vulgar or even wrong. But deleted.

Censorship is foolish unless it is personal, threatening or eve vulgar when it's so simple to not be. So yes. Monitor those and edit.

But a closed system is making you part of the issue. Not the solution.

honestly its to try to keep people from wasting their time.    You can criticize us all you want - just have a reason - keep it on topic - and back it up.  All of us monitor thesecomments hourly so it is a good way to communicate with the crew.  We have thick skin but a low patience for wasting time.

can we entertain the discussion, for a moment, that a closed system might actually be better?...now, i don't disagree that there are merits to an open system, and the points about europe being open when it comes to cellular choices is certainly where the usa needs to go, but entertain me a second...

for as much as you state in your article that you love using your mac your way ("There is no lock in..we are free to do what we decide."), the reality is that apple has always been a closed system (save for the failed attempt at clones) and is today...we can't go buy any machine we want and install the mac os on it...we can't buy apple hardware and install windows on it (easily) without having the mac os there first...we can't buy any piece of computer hardware and install it in our mac and expect it to work...this is apple...

for a while, this was problematic...i could never get someone to switch to apple because they detested the fact that they couldn't walk into an electronics store, buy any piece of hardware they wanted, and put it in a mac...or that the printer they bought might not have mac os drivers...or that some other obscure device wouldn't work with the mac...but many of us knew that this is where windoze users had problems...since microsoft had to be everything to everyone and support everything under the sun, it deflated their usability, security, and reliability...mac users knew this...there was something good about apple's closed system...

then came the ipod and itunes...suddenly, everyone got a taste of how a closed system could be a good thing...the loop between the music, the ipod, and itunes was seamless and the user experience fantastic...and everyone got it...suddenly, microsoft's model wasn't cutting it...all of the music stores separated from the players separated from the drm separated from the software - it was a mess...microsoft started to see that maybe, just maybe, apple's method had some merit after all...and the xbox was born...and the zune was born...

and now we're at the iphone...apple is operating the exact same way it always has (again, save for the failed attempt at clones)...i suppose you could say that steve jobs is operating the exact same way he always has...he wants a closed system to keep with the mantra that having end-to-end control makes the user experience better...and you can't argue - it does...and it absolutely sucks the notion of choice out of the discussion...no argument there...but the user experience for the average person - apple's target - is better...

now, this is a different time...open source, open standards, open everything is all the rage...it's a new paradigm that both apple and microsoft are trying to feel their way around...and while it has caught on in a lot of circles, it hasn't hit the average person yet...yet...and until then, i will happily take apple's closed model and i won't expect anything more from them than a lot more closed infinite loops...

I couldn't agree more... I beginning to feel unloved.

You've got maybe 1% of iPhone purchasers hacking their iPhones. Everyone else knew, going in, that the iPhone was restricted to AT&T and would only have Web 2.0 3rd party apps available. No surprise there.

The iPhone has the highest satisfaction rating in cell phone history. Most buyers are more than satisfied.

Apple had to go with a new marketing paradigm to get the added features and cheap data rates needed for the iPhone to be a success. They also had to pass on 3G technology to increase battery life. Finding the balance between features, battery life, and physical size is Apple's forte and that also factored into the exclusivity contract.

The AT&T contract is also probably behind the attempts by Apple to secure the iPhone. It must be remembered that the hacks were made through an unfixed vulnerability. Apple patching that vulnerability is what bricked the hacked iPhones. Did anyone think Apple would not patch iPhone security vulnerabilities? Didn't Apple warn hackers not to update?

Isn't it about time to move onto some of the more exciting things that are going in a positive direction for Apple: Leopard, possible new Mac Pro processors (Penryn), possible new MacBook line. I understand some of these are speculations but most of these posts are exactly that.
There is much more news in the speculation of new things coming out for Apple than rehashing all the things you dislike about Apple's iPhone decisions.

Yes, Yes, Yes

Great article, points out all my thought on Apple lately.

Perhaps many of us are and have been Apple supporters since we wanted an alternative, even an underdog, to support. We didn't want to move in directions which threatened our freedom of choice or reminded us too much of a Orwellian 1984 future. We liked Apple's ads, it spunk and its technology.

But imagine a world where Apple had made "better" business decisions back in the 1980s and today controlled 90% of the software market for operating systems. What would that world be like? Hmmm. Might not be that pretty of a picture!

Apple is just a corporation which is driven to make money. I understand that. The issue for me is whether Apple takes a long term view and thus wants to treat its customers as well as reasonably as possible or takes a short term view of trying to make as much money as possible this quarter (so who cares about customers?).

I like the long term view given that I perceive it to be more customer friendly. But I see more and more short term thinking at Apple.

One example which comes to mind is having Apple dip into the telephone network provider's revenue stream. I don't think I like that. Will Apple's engineers develop new phone features because they make for a better phone or because they cause more network traffic? If Apple were revenue indifferent with respect to network usage that would be preferable to me. Come up with good ideas to make the phone better as opposed to ideas which squeeze yet another penny out of your customers. Squeezing pennies here and there add up and help short term profits, but when your customers start thinking that you are taking undue advantage, they will look for alternatives.

Apple has sought out the customer who did mind alternative solutions (who thought differently). Apple needs to remember that we haven't changed, we still think differently and will seek other alternatives when the Apple juice sours.

Can anyone tell me why Apple didn't create it's own MVNO alá Amp’d for the iPhone? It would make the user experience seamlessly Apple-branded, and they might have even chosen a 3G network right off the bat (for me, the most frustrating thing about using the iPhone is when I'm stuck on an EDGE connection). All of the different exclusive contracts with mobile networks around the world, plus the unlocked versions in countries with reasonable consumer protection laws, leads to a confusing clusterfuck. With MVNO they could have contracted with multiple carriers behind the scenes, and kept their data service "virtually" in-house. Or am I on crack?

"Apple buys itself out of its carrier agreements (because is Apple adding value to the voice or data connection?- why should they get a piece?)"

Because they pay for it?

Think one step further. It is common understanding that Apple gets a share of the providers revenue. What for again?

The iPhone has a very sophisticated software environment that is not simply a by-product of Mac OS X (like the Apple TV is, which is "just" kind of a "Mac mini-mini"). It (OS X 1.0) was developed alongside the iPhone hardware for about 2 and a half years and development will continue full force, more or less. And probably by many dozens of software engineers. Unlike any other phone.

So who pays for the ongoing development? Apple of course, out of their profits. Would you not try to regain at least some of that money spent? The customers already pay for the hardware and the contract with the provider, not for the software updates (because of that Sarbanes-Oxley Act?), in fact noone would do the latter (not w/o an outcry like for the price cut..).

There is only one source left. One source that is very interested that the perceived value of the handset stays as high as possible or even grows as that draws new customers: The provider.

With this theory there might be a break-even, a number of iPhones that have to be operated through the official providers, for Apple to pay for all ongoing development. But until then they have to enforce the lock, so that it does not cut into their profits. So f.e. in France the price for the unlocked iPhone will be set at a level that Apple still can reach its break even (with a then to be expected lower rate of unlocks of Orange-bound iPhones)

The flipside would be that if Apple sells (only?) unlocked phones there would either be no software updates _at all_ or it would charge the ones demanding them: The iPhone user. Probably $2,50 for a .1 update, $0,50 for a 0.01 one. Maybe there will only ever be an unlocked iPhone available in a market when either law demands it or every (most) provider sells it anyway, this may possibly be as soon as the exclusivity contracts end (or much later).
(part of the revenue participation money might also be for hardware service and Apple guarantee expenses not accounted for in the iPhone price)

This would cover the bullet point 2 and 5, Apple simply would not get money for unlocked iPhones. Of course Apple has an obligation not to harm the provider networks, possibly gets less money if the iPhones creates to much traffic and/or if the iPhone does not operate regularely the provider contract might be canceled by the customer (no. 3.) so no software in-the-wild, only through a controlled environment. Risk prevention.

No. 1 is easy: 1st law of business - high demand, high price. When demand is declining cut the price, first iPhone, then iTunes Plus pricing. The latter may have been in reaction to Amazons mp3, but then again Apple has expected a strong competitor for over four(4) years now, "Amazon, what took you so long?".

Ringtone prices are ridiculous, all over the world. The Proof? Apple charges 99 cents twice and still is the cheapest option :-0

Again just a theory. with which for me most details known of the Apple/provider relationships make sense.


2 cts(€)

Ciao, Alex

If you don't think that the exclusive deal is good for the customers just go to the ATT store and try and piece together a rate plan for a blackberry that is comparable to the iphone plans.  Apple wanted to make sure that the user wouldn't have to pay through the roof for unlimited data and messaging plans so that all the nifty features of the phone would actually be used.  with no exclusive deals with providers people would probably cheap out and not get a plan that would put the iphone to its full use lowering the customer satisfaction in the device.