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Since the dawn of time, man has wondered: will Apple come out with a iPhone, and will it match the success of the iPod? This is the Internet, of course, so by the dawn of time I mean three or four years ago, well before the Motorolla Rokr came out. De…

This article suggests that the iPhone might “get US buyers savvy to the idea of buying full priced unlocked phones” instead of getting subsidized phones. This could “Save the Handset Business” (from the carriers). It&rsquo…

It’s easy to lock a phone that connects to a proprietary data services platform – iTunes! Sure, you could take your locked phone and make phone calls and send text messages on another carrier network – and probably sync your music onto it – but you’d miss out on all the great connected features that Apple will surely include with this handset.

The issue with an MVNO is that it puts the Apple brand name on an underlying cellular service without having the ability to control the quality of that service. They could provide better customer service, but they can’t do anything about reliability, dropped calls, etc. So I think they’d be better off allowing the user to choose the service provider themselves, in the same way that one chooses an Internet service provider (cable/dsl). The Apple Store could sell SIM cards from a variety of cellular providers (GSM only) to go with the unlocked iPod phone.

Then, in the same way that the iTunes Store and .Mac rides atop the Internet cable/dsl service, Apple can sell services (iChat, iTunes Store, MobileMe) atop the cellular service. The potential for these services is huge, especially those that could entice a user to use Mac OS X and iLife.

Ipod + Wifi + Hotspots + VOIP

“The wifi kills the mobile star”

:D

You bring up solid errors in my post. I should have used Cingular and TMobile as my SiM swapping example in the States, as they are doing it for millions of customers. My oversight.

As for Apple selling prepaid SIM cards, I had in mind the same arrangement that, say, Apple has with retailers that sell prepaid iTunes cards. I don’t see why Apple partnering with mobile carriers to put this into action would be a problem. Nor do I think it’s requisite to selling an unlocked iPhone.

As for the price point, Apple doesn’t need to sell a $99 iPhone for it to be successful, for the same reason they didn’t sell a $99 iPod out of the gate. There are plenty of customers at the $400-700 range that will happily buy an iPhone. We’re already paying those prices for unlocked phones offered by Sony Ericsson.

CDMA is key for Asia and seem to remember a a rumor a while back that Japan was going to get an iPhone first via Softbank Mobile (formerly Vodafone Japan, and before that J-Phone).

Having said all that, maybe the wait is they are making a GSM/CDMA phone. Motorola has made one in the past: http://www.motorola.com/motoinfo/product/details.jsp?globalObjectId=49

I guess we can just wait. Not like Apple is going to release any details any time soon!!

Disagree. This is an idealistic point of view. It’s too early to say that if you have ONE unlocked phone, you can get a wireless service around the globe. You still need a carrier anyway. While you can have ONE phone (if it’s unlocked)with GSM carriers (even GSM bands are different in Europe and US, so this phone should support all four GSM bands), you would end up with different phone numbers for each country you go. What about CDMA carriers, they don’t use SIM cards (at least the SIM cards that can be inserted by users). What about Asia, Japan or South Korea? They don’t use SIM cards as well. You mentioned Verizon and Sprint, but they don’t support SIM cards and unlocking is quite difficult with CDMA phones. Last thought, the majority of people don’t travel much on business, only minority does. So, they don’t need ONE phone, they need cheap or free phone that is good for making voice calls and that looks cool.

Besides controlling features on handsets, why do you think carriers sell phones under $99? In order to lure customers to sign a contract, ideally for 2 years. Carriers don’t make money selling handsets, they make money selling wireless service. Without subsidizing the phones, it would be much difficult to get people onboard.

How do you think Apple is going to seel prepaid SIM cards? To do that, Apple will need to partner with carriers to buy wireless traffic from them and resell it to iPhone users (the so-called MVNO model).