This could easily be entitled “Holding My Nerve!”
The following appeared in the New York Times courtesy of the Associated Press:
”This has nothing to do with proactively disabling a phone that is unlocked or hacked,” Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, said in an interview. ”It’s unfortunate that some of these programs have caused damage to the iPhone software, but Apple cannot be responsible for … those consequences.”
Nothing new really. It has always been the case that the next firmware upgrade would in all probability cause a problem for unlocked iPhones and unless Apple did something that forced this upgrade it will remain an option to remain on the ‘original’ version.
There have also been reports this week of Apple refusing to service under warranty hacked iPhones. Again no surprise, and you do have to wonder at the mentality of anybody that would take their phone in for repair without restoring it first.
My position remains the same – buying the iPhone this way gives me a ‘better’ iPod Touch than I could get in the UK, with the added benefit of having the phone feature.
If at any point the phone feature stops working I can live with the ‘remaining’ iPod Touch+, and if I have to stick with the initial firmware version I am again OK with that.
There are already ways of re-locking your iPhone around in case you are worried. Personally I am pretty sure that whatever happens with the firmware the community will find a way around it – it is just the way it is in this market. So as long as you are patient and don’t rush into any firmware upgrades and keep an eye on the what the market is doing then you should be in good shape.
I certainly hope so!