Technologizer

“iPhone 3G puchased at the Apple Online Store can be activated with any wireless carrier. Simply insert the SIM from your current phone into iPhone 3G and connect to iTunes 8 to complete activation.”

It’s been slightly melodramatic to say that reading those words left me giddy. I hate phone contracts and phones locked to a particular carrier–hate ‘em, hate ‘em, hate ‘em, on both practical grounds and principle–and would much rather pay full price for a phone then get locked into a contract. If unlocked iPhone 3Gs had been available when I bought mine back on day one, I’d never have committed to a contract to get a price break. (Were I a civilian, I might not have bought an iPhone 3G at all until contract-free ones became available–AT&T is supposedly going to offer them at some point–but it’s impossible to write about personal technology today without one.)

The good news is that the unlocked iPhone is here. The bad news? It’s only really here if “here” is Hong Kong. The text I quoted above comes from the Hong Kong version of Apple’s online store, where locals can now buy the unlocked, contract-free version of the phone.

A 16GB one goes for $HK 6200–that’s $797.86 to you and me–which is only $100 or so shy of triple the $299 you’ll pay for the phone if you sign up for two years of AT&T service. But such is my hatred of contracts and locked phones that it still sounded tempting. Especially since I’m probably going to be visiting Beijing in November and might be visiting Hong Kong anyhow.

Then it dawned on me: I already have an iPhone, and don’t need another. And I’m already signed up with AT&T until July of 2010. The only benefit of a Hong Kong unlocked iPhone would be the possibility of popping in a prepaid SIM when I’m in another country and thereby avoiding AT&T roaming fees. Which would be nice–but not worth $800 on top of the $299 I’ve already invested in the iPhone I own.

I’ll still be pleased when AT&T starts selling its full-price, contract-free iPhone–and would be even more pleased if Apple were to sell an unlocked iPhone for use with any carrier. I’m not clear, in fact, why it doesn’t. Maybe it simply doesn’t see enough of a market, or the carriers it works with demanded that only locked phones be available. (If you’ve got hard facts or informed speculation, I’d love to hear it.)

Disclaimers and disclosures:

1) I’ve been an AT&T customer for five years now, and it’s been fine; I have no desire to switch carriers and may be with them a decade from now for all I know. (One of the nicest things about the company has been that it’s cheerfully unlocked some of the phones I’ve bought from it when I’ve called customer service and asked politely; it doesn’t do that for iPhone owners, though.) Like I say, it’s the principle of the thing as much as practicalities that I’m obsessing over.

2) While I like to get phones unlocked, I’ve always done so by asking the carrier; going to a back-alley unlocking service unnerves me. I’m not sure offhand if anyone anywhere is successfully unlocking iPhone 3Gs–this post is spawning an ad on my site for unlocked iPhones, but it seems to lead to a dead site–but I don’t think unlocking a locked iPhone will be worth the bother until it’s okay with Apple and AT&T.

3) A month ago, I went into a Verizon store to buy an EVDO adapter. (Yes, I’m a customer of both AT&T and Verizon–I wanted Verizon’s coverage when it came to my laptop.) I fully intended to pay full price and avoid a contract–but the salesguy successfully convinced me to sign a contract on the grounds that the penalty for cancelling the contract goes down each month and eventually reaches zero, allowing me to leave at any time and still save money on the hardware. I feel guilty admitting this, since I wimped out; we’ll see if I ever regret having done so.

I’m still excited about the notion of contractless, carrierless iPhones though. Here’s hoping that by the time a next-generation iPhone (4G?) becomes available, I can buy one in that form. Preferably without flying to Hong Kong…

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