appleinsider.com — A US federal judge has shut down some attempts by Apple and AT&T to dismiss a class action lawsuit that accuses the two of violating antitrust law with their iPhone exclusivity agreement, pushing the complaint closer to a possible trial.
Oct 4, 2008 View in Crawl 4
jasarienOct 5, 2008
Whichever way you look at it, the iPhone isn't 2 years old yet, so any original contract will still be in place at this time. So unless you've cancelled the contract and paid the subsequent cancellation charges, you don't own the phone without the contract.If you bought the phone, and unlocked it before agreeing to a contract (like you could before the at-home activation was taken away) then you've already violated the EULA of the iPhone and its software, which means your argument is still void.The only way you can own an iPhone without being under contract is to cancel the contract and pay the outstanding charges (which usually amounts to paying off the remaining months, which at $40/m would equate to something in the region of $960).If after that you unlock the phone for another provider and an update locks it back to AT&T, I imagine you'd be able to kick up a fuss about it and probably succeed in some way, shape or form.Since you can't buy an iPhone without the attached contract, and since paying the remaining contract just to be able to use it on another network is impractical and just plain silly, I don't think your statements hold much water.
jo21Oct 5, 2008
the problem its not the exclusivity deal.but that they don't sell unlocked like 100% of the other brands phones.
kronix2Oct 5, 2008
"The people who modified their device should be the ones accused of trespass and fraud...."Why is it only Apple fanboys who believe that their beloved product SHOULDN'T be hacked, modified, customised and opened up by the community? Considering this is a device which actually prevented you from using your own mp3s as a ringtone (with the expectation that you'd pay extra for a ringtone version of the song), it looks like the hacked firmware is justified.I have a 6G iPod Classic...I don't run around telling people not to mod the firmware to open the damn thing up, even though I'm not interested in the modded firmware. Incidentally, Apple intentionally added a new check which now prevents almost all 3rd-party iPod sync apps from working with the 6G Classic. Am I surprised? No. Why should I be? It's in Apple's nature to stifle competition and create an ecosystem where their competitors are shut out. Blocking apps like Anapod from working with the 6G Classics only serves one purpose - to force us to use iTunes, which is probably the worst Windows app from a major developer most people will come across.Apple are a bunch of control freaks.* iTunes: iPod customers are now forced to use this app to update their iPods.* iTMS and its DRM: which for all intents and purposes locks your purchases to Apple mp3 players* iPhone+Touch: restrictive app policy, launched with feature-crippled firmware, firmware updates allegedly intentionally bricked modded devices.* iPod: a bizarre iPod folder structure to stop us from being able to easily manage our songs through Explorer* OSX: artificially preventing OSX from running on non-Apple hardware
ryusenOct 6, 2008
correct me if i'm wrong, but doesn't there need to be some kind of abusive monopoly before anti-trust charges can be filed? at that rate you might as well sue a sports league it if signs with one TV network for all of their coverage...
kira7117Oct 15, 2008
In other news, Stones are also almost as good as iPhones:<a class="user" href="http://www.eatliver.com/i.php?n=3509">http://www.eatliver.com/i.php?n=3509</a>