Since the first time Apple’s iPhone was unlocked there has been a thriving market internationally for unlocked iPhones. The practice itself is legal in many countries, but it’s a practice Apple will not be pleased about, and may well try to argue is a breach of their terms and conditions in some way or another.
eBay has long been the best place for anyone outside of the United States to buy an unlocked iPhone, but today eBay has taken their unlocked iPhone selling to another level by using iPhones as a major promotional tool as this screenshot from eBay Australia demonstrates:
Clicking on iPhone image above on ebay.com.au takes you direct to iPhone listings.
iPhones in Australia at least are no longer making the four figure sums they once were on eBay. An unlocked 8GB iPhone today averages around AUD $700 ($628), still a reasonable premium on the $399 ticket price + sales tax.
Apple won’t be pleased, but there isn’t a lot they can do. Importation of iPhones is legal in Australia, as is unlocking them. The warranties are void, and it’s hard to get any sort of support for them locally; I visited an Apple reseller yesterday who told me that they’re not allowed to even talk about the iPhone, let alone suggest an FM transmitter that might work with the iPhone I had in my pocket.
The eBay prices may sound a lot, but to buy a high end Nokia outright (ie not on a plan) is actually more expensive, so they become an appealing item with a reasonable price. Unlocked iPhones are now readily available in ever increasing quantities around the globe; the longer Apple holds back on international expansion the lesser market they will have when they eventually expand supported iPhone territories.
thanks to Bryce for the tip
Update: It would appear that the iPhone is more spread in Australia than I thought. This image taken from the main 6pm news in a story about school children uploading fight videos to YouTube:
My Skitch picture was better
hahahha
Did you know locking phones to one carrier and selling them bundled up with the connection is actually illegal in Finland? Only 3G-capable phones are allowed to be bundled up with the connection, so unlocked phones are stil far more common than locked ones.
So Apple tactics will be (and have been) seen even more outrageous over here, and of course before they 1) supply a 3G model (iPhone v2 seems to be coming up soon enough) 2) sell it without locking here or 3) change the Finnish laws, as far as I can tell they have no legal way to distribute the current brickable version.
Anyone (3)
I believe this might be the case in France as well
That will pull eBay on downhill.
Why is apple so closed with their iphone that customers have to unlock them and take chance of making a brick of them. Will somebody here plz ask Steve jobs? Brilliant design though
Ebay has rights!
I wonder what those iNazis’ will do in response?
They have phones in Australia? I thought they relayed messages via crocodile
Has TechCrunch turned into a gossip column? This article is hardly relevant in this forum.
This post is retarded. Ebay has listed the iphone and other prominent items for sale basically forever. If you spend anytime on ebay you would have noticed this long ago. Ebay is a marketplace for products, and as unlocking your iphone is not illegal, what is the point of this post?
I meant to say that ebay has shown the iphone and other products on the front page like that forever.
Rove a talkshow host down here was waving his around a couple of weeks ago.
Do Aussies really refer to their country as “down here”?
Yeah, bloody oath, “down here”s sweet! It’s broad and vague and interpretable, and much better than “up there”.
so unlocked phones is ok but selling modded consoles isn’t?