frankschmitt.org:

Sometime back in 1997 — while I was extricating myself from my Porsche 914 after grabbing my car stereo face plate, Palm Pilot Professional, and big, honking Nextel phone — I distinctly remember thinking that it sure would be nice if all three of them could fit into one small device, preferably one that didn’t double as digital birth control.

Not quite ten years later, as I lay in bed sick from some godawful cold, Steve Jobs announced the iPhone and I literally pissed my pants with excitement¹. Here was a device that was scarcely bigger than a deck of cards, sexy as an Abercrombie model, that could play music, make phone calls, and keep my contacts and appointments organized, while syncing seamlessly with my other Apple products.

But after the initial Reality Distortion Field high wore off the questions started coming up, and the answers have been disappointing ever since. What does it cost? An arm and a Leg. Can it run apps I write? Only if they have a shitty web-based interface. If I fly back to Germany, can I use the T-Mobile SIM I used on my last trip in my iPhone? As if! About the only bright spot has been the price drop, and that seemed to have been at best a mixed blessing for some people.

Well that, and the momentous effort by The iPhone’s biggest fans to jailbreak the phone and be able to run third-party apps. But now that it’s clear that Apple is not going to be shy about bricking liberated phones on a regular basis, that bright spot has turned pretty dark as well.

I’m sure there are smart people at Apple who get paid to think about this stuff all day, and maybe alienating 90% of their current and potential² power users really is the least bad option for them, but I can’t help but think there could have been a better way of handling the unprecendented surge of hobbyist interest in the iPhone than turning many of them into iBricks.

And it’s not the inability to use an iPhone with another carrier that irks me, despite having to sign up for two more years of shitty reception and tacitly agreeing to the Big Lie that is “fewest dropped calls.” What irks me is how difficult they’re making it to install anything but the half-dozen toy apps that ship on the phone.

It’s probably not too much of a reach to speculate that the former is driving the latter, and that relenting on the third-party apps restriction probably violates some term of their contract with the Death Star. So we are in the unfortunate situation of Apple needing to lock down their software against third-party apps largely because it’s the most straightforward way of preventing people from SIM-unlocking their phones.

(Clearly that’s not all that’s going on, because the iPod touch is also as locked-down as an American embassy in, well, pretty much anywhere these days. I don’t have a good guess as to what the reason is: It could be because of the sensitive nature of the music decryption that takes place on the unit, but I don’t see why MobileITunes would be anymore susceptible to hacking than the desktop version. Or it could be a penny-ante racket to sell iPod games and other apps, or even a game-console-like arrangement to give away razors and sell blades. But none of these feel like the real reason; maybe it comes down to good old-fashioned control-freakery by you know who).  

But is there some way that Apple could allow third-party apps without a slew of contract-contravening unauthorized unlocking going on? Absolutely. By allowing authorized unlocking in the vast majority of cases where it doesn’t hit them in the pocketbook.

That sounds like a tough nut to crack, but remember that the sole purpose of SIM-locking a mobile handset is to make people pay two years worth of monthly fees to the service provider. That’s it. Anything else is just a means, not an end. AT&T doesn’t give a rat’s ass what network you’re using the phone on as long as they get your money.

 So how can Apple make sure AT&T (and they) get your money, without locking out all software lacking their imprimatur? And without alienating power users?

First, make us sign up for a contract before we get our grubby little mitts on the phone. Yes, this worsens the user experience somewhat, and it makes it a little harder for Aunt Millie to put one under the christmas tree for Junior. But you know what else ruins the user experience? That’s right: bricking someone’s $600 link to the outside world. That way AT&T has a piece of paper that lets them sic a collections agent on your ass if you stop paying them: it’s a legal contract, not a cheezy digital workaround for what should be a legal contract.

Secondly, consider selling unlocked iPhones for a premium somewhere in the world where Apple’s contract with AT&T doesn’t apply. A good place for this would be Canada, where you can’t use an iPhone right now³, because Apple didn’t succeed in its corporate arm-twisting with either member of the Canadian GSM duopoly. And of course Canadians are used to paying through the nose for stuff you can get more cheaply in the US, even now with the Loonie over par.

Sure, you’ll get a few grey-market phones entering countries where Apple has an existing agreement with a network, but that’s been the case since SIM locks were invented, and you know what? The networks do OK, and people in countries without an Apple store (like pretty much all of Africa) can indirectly give Apple their money.

Finally, reward loyal customers by unlocking their phones on request. There’s a rumor that the major carriers will do this after a few months of paying your bill on time, but let’s make it official. I’m not an average user, but the only reason I’d ever want to SIM-unlock my increasingly-hypothetical iPhone is to use it at less usurious rates while travelling. Really, if they implemented my first suggestion, there’d be no reason to SIM-lock the phones in the first place, but if it gives them a little extra warm fuzzies to keep the phones locked, this would kill my motivation to try any kind of unauthorized unlocking procedure.

1 It’s a long story, but let me just state I’m not misusing the term “literally.” back

2 e.g. me. back

3 Unless you’re roaming. Or one of us lucky few folks that are grandfathered in on Cingular’s erstwhile North America Plan. back