French iPhone buyers may choose Orange or unlocked
In the collision between French telecom law and Apple's carrier exclusivity for the iPhone, guess who blinked. Engadget and the International Herald-Tribune among other sources are reporting that the French iPhone will be sold in two versions, an Orange-locked handset for 399 euros, and an unlocked party animal for some as-yet-unannounced higher price. This is a consequence of France's statute, on the books since 1998, forbidding carrier locks beyond a six-month introductory window.Given the option of a third-party unlock (either free or paid-for) versus shelling out extra for a legit, unlocked, vive le France iPhone... well, I expect there'll be a bit of shuttle diplomacy going on as would-be iPhone buyers decide to visit Paris for the holidays.
Thanks, Loki.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
yoyotte said 12:50PM on 10-17-2007
Hey i m french and I know it wil cost 1000€ if you want your iPhone unlock
thats so ridiculous now you can unlock it for free
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loki der quaeler said 12:59PM on 10-17-2007
perhaps you're both french and not yet had the pleasure of unlocking it for free and then living under the spectre of bricking your unlocked phone every time there's an official update.
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Roy said 1:09PM on 10-17-2007
Yes, you can unlock it for free. It is illegal and voids your warranty, though.
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bob said 1:10PM on 10-17-2007
so itll be 6 months after its french release (prob an iphone 2 by then) cost more than the normal one and prob will be in french only or somehoe regeon locked. not what some were hoping for.
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Felix H said 1:25PM on 10-17-2007
Then it should be easy to analyze the difference between locked and unlocked phones and finally the perfect unlock/relock method would be developed.
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tnkgrl said 1:33PM on 10-17-2007
For the N-th time... Unlocking is not illegal! But with the iPhone it voids the warranty, based on the agreement you made with Apple when buying the phone.
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joseph said 1:45PM on 10-17-2007
Chances are very high that French will be the only language available on the device.
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Dankoozy said 1:52PM on 10-17-2007
its not illegal to unlock your phone.
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JD said 1:53PM on 10-17-2007
"7. Chances are very high that French will be the only language available on the device."
Yeah - but THAT will be very easy to fix
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tones said 1:59PM on 10-17-2007
Don't get excited about ordering your French unlocked iPhone - As with buying music from iTunes, it will be very easy for Apple to only allow a special sim free activation for non Orange sims by restricting to French iTunes version users only.
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Mars said 2:59PM on 10-17-2007
@Tones, I believe what you are talking about is illegal in the European Union. Restricting trade and commerce between E.U. member countries is very tricky business The very iTunes practice that you have mentioned has gotten Apple in some *very* hot water in the E.U. and is not yet (to the best of my knowledge) a settled issue.
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Likely said 3:21PM on 10-17-2007
@ Mars
Correct, in the EU the law rules not Apple.
Not even sure if they'll be allowed to do that (offer 2 versions) as some EU countries are very strict in their legislation, only time will tell.
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Leish said 3:26PM on 10-17-2007
This is great for Apple - they would probably LOVE it if the US would also make it illegal for them to lock people in for extended periods. They would sell waaaaay more phones. Trouble is, they need the cell providers to help them with the visual voice mail (which cost $$$ to implement), and they would loose the revenue stream from the exclusive agreement. However, they will loose that eventually and I bet the extra phone sale revenues would at least cover the loss.
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Likely said 3:27PM on 10-17-2007
And it seems the price is going up and up....
399.00 EUR = 278.010 GBP
? If you don't have a Mac/PC then how can you activate it, believe it or not not everyone has one, they should offer instore activations for those that choose that route.
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tones said 3:55PM on 10-17-2007
@ 11 and 12
The unlocked Phone is French law, and not an EU law.
Whilst there is no doubt that the multi-itunes versions across the EU is currently under investigation, there is nothing that requires Apple to stop this *as yet*, and no legal ramifications currently exist, in my non-legal background opinion.
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Mars said 4:19PM on 10-17-2007
@Tones, the unlucking law in question 100% French, you are correct. There is nothing requiring Apple to offer unlocked phones in other E.U. member states.
The problem in question here is that selling a product, in this case an unlocked iPhone, in one E.U. member-state with a mechanism (software or otherwise) to prevent its use in other member states is quite illegal. It's all part of the European Unions free trade agreements.
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tones said 4:27PM on 10-17-2007
@ mars
Many thanks for the clarification, I stand corrected and look forward to seeing how this pans out (price being the large unknown)
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ConsultDifferent said 4:47PM on 10-17-2007
What everyone seems to be missing (as usual) is that a factory unlocked iPhone represents a genuine opportunity to take it apart, and find out how Apple does it - if anything, any of the Dev Teams should start work now on a method of completely cloning (baseband and all) an existing iPhone onto another.
All we'd need in the future then is getting a hold of one French iPhone (I'm even willing to purchase and provide that), cloning it, and replicating it onto existing US iPhones. This should then yield a legitimate unlocked iPhone.
Of course, it's my guess that Apple will have further locked down the firmware by then to combat such an effort.
The other peripheral benefit would be that the above aproach would result in ways to unbrick existing iBricks, simply as it would literally revirginize the iPhone. Kinda a neat way to remind the Dev Team to work on their unbrick solution ....
Either way, depending on how this is handled in France, it may eventually force AT&T's hand to also allow unlocking for customers, under certain conditions. All it takes is a precendent (and, again, Apple knew all of this fully well).
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11onze said 8:05PM on 10-17-2007
I have a few doubts on Apple's marketing strategy on iPhone:
Q1. Why Apple is selling iPhone in its store, which can not be used without unlocking - does this mean Apple is actually 'expecting' a large group of buyers to unblock iPhone?
Q2. Can apple make a large profit by only sharing the subscribers' monthly bills with AT&T? (I doubt so, which may answer to Q1.)
Q3. If all the iPhones were sold unlocked with no string attached, would the volume of iPhone purchases be many times more that it is now? and more profits??
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kylegl said 8:21PM on 10-17-2007
Just to clarify things about the french law :
- the carrier HAS to sell an unlocked phone, but he can sell it at a higher price than the locked one.
- the carrier HAS to unlock a phone WHENEVER the client ask him, but can ask for money for that (currently less than 100€ for Orange).
- the carrier HAS to unlock a phone FOR FREE, as soon as the client has the phone for more than 6 month. It's the law and there's jurisprudence on this matter.
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