Might AT&T Screw Up The iPhone?

June 14th, 2007

TechnologyIt’s something to think about, and would be the equivalent of Peter Jackson directing the Hobbit but hiring Adam Sandler to play Bilbo - messing up a sure thing because of the partner chosen.

Apple has a monster hit on its hands. The iPhone is the wide / touch screen iPod until now only found in fanboy fantasies. It’s from Apple who has delivered the goods on all kinds of cool hardware over the past few years. They’re known for quality, are a trusted brand, and give people so much value that we’re willing to overpay for the privilege.

But now Apple’s iPhone is in the hands of AT&T.

The first warning sign is this blog post speculating that every purchase of an iPhone will required data plan from Cingular if you’re going to do anything Internet-related on the iPhone. This would be above and beyond the cellphone contract. Maybe this isn’t a surprise to many, but I was under the impression that a WiFi enabled iPhone meant you could use any available WiFi network.

I’m hoping that one could buy the iPhone and simply forgo the cellphone functionality (and therefore the contract). That would essentially render it a full-screen, Internet capable iPod Nano which is all I’m interested in anyhow. But this might not be allowed - any iPhone user might have to be a customer of AT&T after you buy the phone from Apple.

According to a comment on this Engadget article, here’s the bad news:

Does that mean I have to use AT&T as my iPhone service provider?

Yes. Both iPhone models will require a two-year contract with AT&T, the exclusive U.S. carrier. Apple has no plans to release a version of the iPhone without a service contract or one that is unlocked.

Based on that and what was said by Jobs during the keynote, I believe that the Mac Store employees will in fact be forcing you to sign AT&T contracts before they hand over the iPhone.

Well, that sucks. Why am I relatively down on AT&T? I’m not exactly getting the warm and fuzzy feeling that AT&T puts their customers first. More likely (and not unusual for most mega-corporations) I can see some executive saying, hey, we have all these early adopters ready to buy millions of iPhones right out of the gate, credit cards in hand - let’s milk ‘em for all they’re worth.

Way back when the iPhone was first rumored I voiced a hope that Apple would use this as an opportunity to simplify the currently stupid and confusing cell phone contracts. As in, do away with the multi-year lock ins, do “pay as you go,” or at the very least, apply Apple’s “good, better, best” to only three options.

What would be really lame is if Apple just left the contract stuff to AT&T. Knowing the level of control Apple usually desires over their products, hopefully they didn’t.

Well, only two weeks to find out exactly how much the iPhone is really going to cost.

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