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Comments on news posted 2012-10-22 08:28:43: A new class action lawsuit was filed against Apple late last week for locking consumers into the AT&T Network without first obtaining the consumers' contractual consent to have their iPhones locked. ..

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KA0OUV
Premium Member
join:2010-02-17
Jefferson City, MO

1 recommendation

KA0OUV

Premium Member

The Sherman Antitrust Act

"It's not sexy, but it's got teeth."

Mitch McDeere
The Firm

IowaCowboy
Lost in the Supermarket
Premium Member
join:2010-10-16
Springfield, MA

IowaCowboy

Premium Member

Market pressure

Market pressure was the factor that made Apple decide to release the iPhone on other carriers. Verizon started selling the iPhone before the exclusivity agreement was technically supposed to expire.

I had AT&T before the iPhone was invented (was with AT&T/Cingular from 2004-2011) so buying the iPhone 3GS was just another one of my many upgrades. The iPhone 3GS was the last phone I had on AT&T before buying an iPhone 4 on Verizon.

AT&T was good for the most part but issues with dropped calls and network overloads made me decide to switch to Verizon.
Terabit
join:2008-12-19

Terabit

Member

I'll join

It's not apple that should be sued, it's AT&T and their dirt-bag practices to monopolize the market.

This entire locking of a handsets, that are already limited to typically two or less carriers in a country of 310 million, is whacky Republinomics (let them self regulate) at its best. Also negates the other BS agreement of the consumer (market) decides; no AT&T decides and tells you like a plutocrat what to do.

rokman1
@maxis.net.my

rokman1 to IowaCowboy

Anon

to IowaCowboy

Re: Market pressure

Does anyone think there is a remote possibility that Verizon knew of the pending lawsuit and hence decided to keep the iPhone 5 unlocked?

cowboyro
Premium Member
join:2000-10-11
CT

cowboyro

Premium Member

BS.

You can buy a no-contract iPhone straight from AT&T. Unlocking is free and the code is provided by AT&T upon request.
bnceo
join:2007-10-11
Bel Air, MD

bnceo

Member

Still not good enough. From the get go, Apple should sell unlocked iPhones. Instead, they wait a few months for demand to die down, then bring them out.

morbo
Complete Your Transaction
join:2002-01-22
00000

morbo to rokman1

Member

to rokman1

Re: Market pressure

Based on their decision making, I believe Verizon management is more intelligent than AT&T management. So yes, that is a real possibility.

kara
@comcast.net

kara

Anon

bs

Do lawsuit on both they are to greedy
bsdaiwa
join:2004-06-04
Fullerton, CA

bsdaiwa

Member

Where Do I Sign Up

Where do I sign up. We purchased two 3GS's on ebay and AT&T refused to unlock them since we did not purchase them directly from them. They refused to unlock one other 3GS when we could not provide the name of the original purchaser, that one was also purchased on ebay. On all occasions they said the phones were past the original contract period but since "we" did not purchase them from AT&T they would not unlock them.
Apple won't unlock them until AT&T approves it.
Again, where do I sign up.

cableties
Premium Member
join:2005-01-27

cableties to bnceo

Premium Member

to bnceo

Re: BS.

Not good enough?
Wait, we are not talking about the only cellphone/smartphone on the market. you do have choices.

But know that if you want Apple:
-it's not cheap
-it's a closed product
-it's controlled
-it's form over function
-it's cool (opinion)

Look, I am all for having both unlocked* and locked phones. But since Apple isn't the carrier, they may not have ability to create a phone that works on a network without some give and take (yes, you may use our phone on our network, but give us some leeway time to make money).

Can one buy an iPhone 5, right now, unlocked? For any network? Now THAT is the issue. There are 3 types of phones.
Nope.
Go to the apple webstore. You have to pick a phone, then a carrier. Can one get an iPhone 5 unlocked? Notice that they made three types? scary... (all this tech and can't have one universal communicator)

* do you realize that I learned about unlocked phone from BBR (dslreports)? Yep. here, I learned that I don't have to be locked into a contract. just buy a phone, and get a card/number with bucket of service/data. One that waits, can save $.
Those that have to have the newest, fund it.

n2jtx
join:2001-01-13
Glen Head, NY

n2jtx

Member

Add Sprint To The List

I would add Sprint to the list too. While they will unlock an iPhone for use with non-USA SIM's (I use a Rogers SIM when I am in Canada), they refuse to unlock any iPhone's for domestic SIM usage even if all contract terms are fulfilled. People who paid the ETF and upgraded to an iPhone 5 have found that they basically have a brick when it comes to using the iPhone with any other USA carrier (GSM). Used Sprint iPhone's have less resale value than used Apple unlocked AT&T iPhone's.

I still have one year to go before my 4S contract is up and hopefully Sprint will be removing all locks by that time or someone will have taken them to court too.

bbrkdub
join:2001-10-03
San Antonio, TX

bbrkdub to cableties

Member

to cableties

Re: BS.

said by cableties:

Can one buy an iPhone 5, right now, unlocked? For any network? Now THAT is the issue. There are 3 types of phones.
Nope.
Go to the apple webstore. You have to pick a phone, then a carrier. Can one get an iPhone 5 unlocked? Notice that they made three types? scary...

Maybe I'm missing something, but you can buy an unlocked iPhone 5 right now...
»store.apple.com/ca/brows ··· /iphone5

I was only asked about color and size. Now, due to current demand, it'll take some time to arrive at your place, but the purchase will be finished. Then again, you can always change your country setting on the Apple website or within iTunes to say...Hong Kong. From there, you can buy the phone as well.

Anyway, I'd skip this model due to chipped paint and purple flares in pictures.

djrobx
Premium Member
join:2000-05-31
Reno, NV

djrobx to cowboyro

Premium Member

to cowboyro
said by cowboyro:

You can buy a no-contract iPhone straight from AT&T. Unlocking is free and the code is provided by AT&T upon request.

Important part in BOLD:

By locking down customer iPhone to protect AT&T's original exclusive right to sell the device, the lawsuit insists, Apple violated rights within the DMCA allowing consumers the right to modify devices they purchased, or use the network of their choice.

They only recently started offering the option to unlock iPhones. I should have been able to take my original iPhone to T-mobile after my contractual obligations were met.

I'm not really sure who's at fault (AT&T or Apple).

Morac
Cat god
join:2001-08-30
Riverside, NJ

Morac to rokman1

Member

to rokman1

Re: Market pressure

said by rokman1 :

Does anyone think there is a remote possibility that Verizon knew of the pending lawsuit and hence decided to keep the iPhone 5 unlocked?

I believe part of Verizon's deal to acquire certain spectrum that they had to leave the iPhone unlocked, for the same reason that Verizon can't charge for tethering.

Prior to that, Verizon would actually lock phones that had been previously unlocked when the phone was added to Verizon's network.

Also just because the iPhone 5 is unlocked, doesn't mean people who bought a contract can switch without paying the ETF.
Morac

Morac to KA0OUV

Member

to KA0OUV

Re: The Sherman Antitrust Act

And I'm not sure it applies here. It's not like people had to buy an iPhone. Yes if you originally wanted an iPhone you had to buy one locked to AT&T, but there were lots of other phones out there at the time.

The fact that the iPhone doesn't have a majority of the market share today should be enough to prove that the original contract did not hurt competition. Actually if anything it limited the number of iPhones out there since originally people on carriers other than AT&T couldn't even get it.

They might have good intentions, but I predict this law suit will be thrown out.
wkm001
join:2009-12-14

wkm001

Member

This use to be less of a big deal...

when it was CDMA and GSM. Now most carriers are deploying LTE. But more and more phones have CDMA, GSM, and LTE in them. I think someone should sue the FCC for doing a terrible job with carrier interoperability. It is obviously feasible from a technical standpoint. AT&T and Verizon don't want other phones or smaller carriers on their network.

boosprint
@tresourcegroup.com

boosprint

Anon

re sprint unlock

Even after the phone was supposedly unlocked, it was not, even when iTunes said it is. My upgrade was around, got the iPhone 5, sold it, made 300 bucks profit on top of the purchase price, sold my iPhone 4s for another 300(international unlocked), paid sprint off and ported out. pluck you sprint

LightS
Premium Member
join:2005-12-17
Greenville, TX

1 edit

LightS to Terabit

Premium Member

to Terabit

Re: I'll join

Yes, we get it, you're left sided. But does EVERYTHING with you have to be a political standoff?

However, it's painfully obvious that you didn't read the article that Karl linked. It's in regards to the first generation iPhone...
stufried
Premium Member
join:2003-10-13

1 edit

stufried

Premium Member

Class Action Suits Have Become a Joke

Even if counsel wins, they'll get $50,000,000 in attorney fees and we will get a voucher for $5 of free apps (of their choice) which can only be claimed between April 24 and 29th, 2013 and after 11pm.

LightS
Premium Member
join:2005-12-17
Greenville, TX

LightS to cowboyro

Premium Member

to cowboyro

Re: BS.

The article linked, which you obviously didn't read, was in reference to the original iPhone.

Also, notice, "upon request." Pretty inconvenient, huh?
ackman
join:2000-10-04
Atlanta, GA

ackman

Member

Funny

The Sherman Act was abandoned around 30 years ago. Would be nice if any administration's Justice Dept believed in enforcing the law, but that's a pipe dream. Oracle Corp and AT&T are the poster children for the destruction of Antitrust laws.

koolman2
Premium Member
join:2002-10-01
Anchorage, AK

koolman2 to bbrkdub

Premium Member

to bbrkdub

Re: BS.

That's the Canadian store. You can't get them on the US site.

N3OGH
Yo Soy Col. "Bat" Guano
Premium Member
join:2003-11-11
Philly burbs

N3OGH to KA0OUV

Premium Member

to KA0OUV

Re: The Sherman Antitrust Act

I always pictured Wilfred Brimley from "Firm" security running corporate security at Appple. It's just what pops in my head.....
tmc8080
join:2004-04-24
Brooklyn, NY

tmc8080

Member

manure

from what I hear, the Iphone 5 is crap.. it's quite possibly worse than the good old windows-me operating system from microsoft.

when a company makes a crap product, people should stop caring about it so much and move on..

in the end, Apple will spend so much on lawyers (for various actions, not just this one) that this huge market cap will be squandered faster than the housing market on Gangnam Style economics..
Terabit
join:2008-12-19

Terabit to LightS

Member

to LightS

Re: I'll join

I was speaking in general, including handsets all the way to the 5.

I don't want to mention politics, however, we are suffering because of the policies and creed of the GOP. Because of government legislation, it's prohibited to lock handsets in various countries.

Whereas, the GOP refuses to allow or pass any equivalent legislation here. They want AT&T and Verizon to do as they please, as they have with Walmart.

Cheese
Premium Member
join:2003-10-26
Naples, FL

Cheese to koolman2

Premium Member

to koolman2

Re: BS.

I just checked and it looks like you can... 699+

koolman2
Premium Member
join:2002-10-01
Anchorage, AK

koolman2

Premium Member

Go to the US site:

»store.apple.com/us/brows ··· /iphone5

Cheese
Premium Member
join:2003-10-26
Naples, FL

Cheese

Premium Member

I was just there and saw unlocked, now I don't. Maybe it was the Canadian site I was on but since I typed apple.com not sure how I would have gone to Canadian site.

koolman2
Premium Member
join:2002-10-01
Anchorage, AK

koolman2

Premium Member

It probably was the Canadian site somehow. The US unlocked iPhones have gone for the same as the contract-free phones, which start at $649.

Transmaster
Don't Blame Me I Voted For Bill and Opus
join:2001-06-20
Cheyenne, WY

Transmaster to Terabit

Member

to Terabit

Re: I'll join

said by Terabit:

I was speaking in general, including handsets all the way to the 5.

I don't want to mention politics, however, we are suffering because of the policies and creed of the GOP. Because of government legislation, it's prohibited to lock handsets in various countries.

Whereas, the GOP refuses to allow or pass any equivalent legislation here. They want AT&T and Verizon to do as they please, as they have with Walmart.

2000 years from now, Like the Jewish Passover, There will be The GOP Blame Bush Day.
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