Unlocked iphone availability

[Evan Leibovitch]

William Muriithi wrote:
> I would love to pick the new iphone once the new models become
> available. I have never bothered looking at this toy before so I know
> very little other than what I get from the media. This however don´t
> always happen to be true once you get in the field.
>
> My question is, is their a store any where in Toronto where one can
> pick the phone that is free to use on any network and without going
> through the pain of unlocking it?
There are stores in Toronto that can sell you an unlocked phone and
stores in Toronto that can sell you an iPhone. But, based on the US
experience there will be no stores that will legally do both.

Official distribution of the iPhone in Toronto will be limited to Rogers
(and its subsidiary Fido). Also consider that the iPhone is a GSM phone
so it cannot work on Bell or Telus even if unlocked. So you can't switch
carriers (unless you consider going between Fido and Rogers to be
switching).

In any case, there are published reports of how Apple actively works to
punish those who unlock their phones by disabling them during software
updates. All this can be eventually worked around, but it hardly seems
worth the bother to do so.

I am sure that will be an underground market for unlocked iPhones in
Canada. But with effectively only one carrier that can support it, the
only advantage of unlocking is if you travel a lot and want to be able
to save roaming costs by buying short term SIM cards in the countries
you visit. You can't do that with a locked phone.

- Evan


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