Some mobile providers complained in Germany how T-Mobile was selling Apple's iPhone bound to a 2-year long contract, with the hardware apparently not working with any other phone card. E.g. if you move to another country, you can't use the same phone (not even with e.g. T-Mobile in the USA, the guy in the shop told me). Great example of trying to lock in customers by removing their product usage rights. Even people like me who already have a running T-Mobile contract would have been forced to pay the amount of 100 Euro just to switch contracts for iPhone usage (plus the new extended, and pricier, contract).

The legal complaints were successful and now, T-Mobile was forced to change their ways and starting today, sells a non-locked standalone phone for 999 Euro (the one with the contract lock-in, starting at €49 per month or something, costs €399). I'm not sure if the actual modified phone is available in shops already, but that's what TV news reported today.

999 Euro is too expensive IMO, but at least it's a start... maybe soon they will lower the price.

Hmm, German law doesn't make good sense that often. Pretty good ruling though now to decouple what doesn't need to be coupled, avoiding monopolization.

Wow – That's like almost $1,500

Actually Philipp, I think we may praise European law because we have the same law in France, and from what I remember, it was introduced to comply with a "directive européenne" (EG-Richtlinie).

Just telling it because we don't give enough credit to the EU: we always tend to say Brussels when there's something wrong and credit ourselves for the work done with the funds of the EU (That's at least what we do in France, not presuming for the German case)

Yeah, you can get that in france too for 999€

UK iPhone – £899 after you've paid the 18 month contract :-(

I had a go on one and wasn't that impressed

yeah buy that 999€ an then hack the darn thing for any other country..

some kid in canada did just that..

http://communities.canada.com/ottawacitizen/blogs/bitsandbytes/archive/2007/08/30/cracked-iphones-on-way-to-canada-rogers-wireless-welcomes-them-with-open-arms.aspx

I really want an iPhone except O2 signal near me is useless, might get one and hack it – but that seems like a lot of effort to keep doing.

Buying the German one is an alternative, and cheaper than the UK + Contract however I then have to pay for a data/calls etc of my own so it will probably be just as bad.

Philipp, Do you think you would buy an iPhone? Now that it is available in Germany.

I can't wait for the SDK to come out in Feb.

I'll try wait a bit perhaps there's a price drop. 999 Euro is too much for a phone. Though I really like the usability of what I saw so far so and I'd definitely like to play around with this. From what I've seen, I get the feeling it's the best phone/ interface on the market today, by some distance. My current phone at this time doesn't even have an alarm clock anymore, I would need to reinstall the Windows Mobile OS basically (synchronizing all my data before) to fix this, the guy in the shop told me. Both the hardware on my current phone as well as the software are very unusable...

Wait 2 months and maybe they will drop the price. :P

I have had my iPhone since the end of September and I've been really happy with it. I haven't added any new software as I would like to keep the phone working after each firmware update. But overall, the internet on it is amazing.

But there no 3G : (

I take back whatever positive I may have said about the German law system ;)

The temporary ruling has now been reverted. T-Mobile can continue selling the contract-locked phone, which means you won't be able to switch carriers (or take the phone to another country to use it there with a local carrier). Following up on the new ruling, T-Mobile announced they will go back to the old sales model; no more 999€ unlocked version.

http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,521320,00.html

:rolleys:

roll on france

http://blogoscoped.com/forum/115796.html#id115809 Nope! It is cheaper! It is only 749 € in France to buy a legal unlocked iphone at orange store...