I heard a story on NPR this morning. To some this will be a "Why is he writing about this?" and to others it'll be "Thank god he wrote about this. I didn't know."You can learn how to unlock your iPhone by going to iPhone was completely unlocked: SIM Free, August 24, 2007,. To the "Thank god he wrote about this" crowed, you've already clicked on the link and have stopped reading this post. For the rest of us, some explanation...
There are lots of us in the "Why is he writing about this?" crowd who are thinking "Unlock your iPhone? I didn't know it came in a case. I wouldn't think they'd make the case so hard to get into. Maybe that's why I don't see people with their iPhone's in cases; they're too hard to unlock."
No, not quite. Unlocking means being able to switch your iPhone's cellular carrier from AT&TTM, what it comes with, to whatever you'd like. Evidently both AppleTM's and AT&TTM's lawyers are already working at getting the above page and similar ones pulled from the 'net. NPR didn't list the pages during their broadcast and you can find them with a Google search.
Why is this news?
More than anything else, anything AppleTM is news. The amount of money that AT&TTM could lose is newsworthy. It is newsworthy to me because of (yes) another quote, "News is something that someone, somewhere doesn't want published. Everything else is advertising (Lord Northcliff)." A little editing and this quote is about secrets, patents, things companies don't want you to do... . A little history gets you "If you want to get something done, tell people it's impossible. Eventually you'll tell the one person who doesn't believe you and can get it done."
In many ways I fall into that latter category. I can't tell you the number of solutions NextStage has developed for clients, and usually because somebody said a solution didn't exist. NextStage's Evolution TechnologyTM came about because I was told a problem was impossible to solve.
I have to wonder at the strategy of putting the iPhone on the market -- especially recognizing the iPhone's target audience -- and telling that market "you can only do X, Y and Z with it." The iPhone's target market simply won't take that. It'll respond with "You're making me pay (whatever) for a tool that can expand my life then tell me there are boundaries to the expansion?"
Can you say gauntlet?
I wonder if AppleTM, knowing their audience, primed their audience to do something that AppleTM couldn't do for contractual reasons.
Wouldn't be the first time a company has invited a user base to adjust a product so that the company could rightly claim, "We had no choice. We had to follow our users to remain competitive."
Clever, that.
Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics.
Upcoming Conferences:
- IMedia Brand Summit on 9-12 Sept 07
- XChange on 20-21 Sept 07
- DC Emetrics Summit on 14-17 Oct '07
- Society for New Communications Research Annual Research Symposium & Awards Gala on 5-6 Dec 07 in Boston.
Comment Preview