On the heels of a difficult, several hour hardware modification to allow the iPhone to be used with carriers other than AT&T, from Engadget, there’s confirmation of a fast, software-only approach. available from iPhone-Sim-Free. This is an even higher impact event than the NY Times correctly points out:
The iPhone unlocking craze may have reverberations beyond Apple and AT&T.Cellphone carriers in the United States generally subsidize the initial purchase of a phone and then work to keep customers paying the lucrative monthly fees. That is why operators offer incentives for loyalty and require long contracts.
But people now want the same freedom with their cellphones that they have with other devices, like televisions and computers.
Mike McGuire, an analyst at the research firm Gartner, says that even though few consumers will try these sophisticated alterations, the iPhone modifications point to “the rather rapid erosion of the carrier control of handset distribution.”
“This has been going on for a while,” he said, “and this is the latest salvo.”
With Software and Soldering, a Non-AT&T iPhone – New York Times
because now that there’s a touch and motion sensitive Macintosh computer that works multiple carriers and serve as a meshverse device, the market can expand much more rapidly.
