How many unlocked iPhones are there?
During all this hubbub over bricked iPhones, one question keeps coming up over and over again: Just how many iPhone users does the unlocked phone-disabling 1.1.1 software update actually affect?
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster is willing to take a stab at the answer. According to AppleInsider, Munster wrote a research note to clients saying that Piper Jaffray calculates as many as 10 percent of the iPhones sold during the month of September were “purchased with the intention to be resold unlocked.” (In its report of Munster’s findings, Ars Technica is a little dubious about the methodology.)
The actual number of affected phones may be like the number of licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie pop: The world may never know. But our colleagues at Computerworld confidently report that iPhone update 1.1.1 “has essentially killed the market for unlocked phones.” Just because it renders them inoperable? C’mon, would-be unlockers — where’s your sense of adventure?
Category: News
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Comments (2)
Had to take my iPhone in to the Genius at our local Apple store yesterday. While he was working on it, I asked him how many iBricks they have encountered. He said they have had none yet.
Posted by dennyg | October 4, 2007 8:26 PM
I would like to see a survey.
I have purchased 21 units for some of our organization's top executives as a pilot program. Because we need to use the corporate AT&T plan, I had to figure out how to activate the phones outside of iTunes. Glad iActivator and then iNdependence came along as the CLI programs were a PITA. We have no real desire to unlock the iPhones, just need Apple to have a corporate activation plan.
Net sum, all phones purchased by my organization will be staying at or retrograded to 1.0.2 until corporate support is available. I am aware of other major organizations doing the same.
A survey would be very interesting.
Posted by Wm. Cerniuk | October 6, 2007 11:24 AM