On 2009-07-01, Dennis Ferguson <dcferguson@pacbell.net> wrote:
>> For example, the iPhone has the "flaw/limitation" that you can't
>> tether it (or, in 3.0, you can but only if the carrier lets you).
>> This is obviously done to make the carriers happy, but in return
>> it means that iPhone carrier contracts tend to offer genuinely
>> unlimited data access (barring roaming). So this "flaw" enables
>> a benefit for the consumer (no hidden/unexpected charges).
>
> Benefit compared to what? The $15 dumbphone and $30 smartphone data
> plans AT&T had prior to the iPhone, and still have, also offer genuinely
> unlimited data access (those terms are identical to the iPhone plan)
> but don't prevent you from using a phone capable of tethering (and most
> of the phones AT&T sold were capable).

I don't know anything about AT&T - it doesn't operate in my country.
But from what other people have said in this group, and from common
sense, I believe you are mistaken.

> While having the firmware enforce what was formerly just a
> contractual T&C issue might be a benefit to someone, that someone is
> definitely not the person who paid for the phone.

It is a benefit for the people who don't want tethering and don't want
to have to pay for it.

> Um, unlocking with every other GSM phone I've purchased from a US
> carrier has been a matter of phoning the carrier and asking for
> the subsidy password.

Obviously, I was talking about unlocking "unofficially".
Unlocking "officially" tends to cost money, if it's available at all.

> The innovation introduced for the iPhone sold by AT&T, at least
> compared to the way other phones are sold now, is the inability to
> get the carrier to remove the SIM lock at all.

That's surely up to AT&T, not Apple. You can get officially unlocked
iPhones, so it's clearly possible.

> As I understand the state of things the need to jailbreak the
> phone, no matter where you bought the phone, is a feature which may
> be unique to the iPhone, so I'm not exactly clear what you are
> comparing the iPhone's ease of jailbreaking to.

You're confusing unlocking and jailbreaking again. I wasn't comparing
the ease of jailbreaking to anything.