I found this very interesting article today, which talks about the recent and well known problem with Apples’ iPhone. Most Americans had not previously thought much about the issues of locking and unlocking phones until this big story hit the news, and this has been a very profitable situation for the cell phone companies, because it allows them to force us to have to have a different service plan for each and every phone that we want to use.

In a world of unlocked phones, it would be no problem, for instance, to have three different phones, each for different purposes, and you could essentially move your one service back and forth amongst the phones as you saw fit. So, you could have your big beautiful iPhone, a super rugged phone, and a super small phone, and when you wanted to switch phones, you’d just move your sim card back and forth.

Personally, it does not surprise me a bit that it was Apple who started this mess; they’ve long been purveyors of proprietary technologies. These types of issues are rampant in the world of Apple electronics, but because their market penetration is so small, nobody gives a crap.

Once they finally managed to tap into the mass market, it was only a matter of time before this dirty little aspect of this otherwise wonderful company came to light.

Anyways, you can read the full text of the article, here:

Consumers Want Unlocked Phones

The Apple iPhone controversy has raised consumer awareness about the issue of locked cell phones–and that’s a good thing.

Mike Elgan, Computerworld

   Saturday, October 20, 2007 1:00 PM PDT

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,138674-c,cellphones/article.html