My friends Jeff Pulver and Fred Wilson both say they’d buy an iPhone if they could find one that was unlocked meaning that they could put a SIM card in it and use it with networks other than at&t (nee Cingular). The phone comes locked to that network but it’s a pretty good bet someone’ll find a way to unlock it pretty soon.
Wired said Jeff was one of the only two iPhone refuseniks in the world but they must’ve missed Fred and me. Fred is even offering ad space on his blog for someone who comes up with a legit unlocked iPhone. By legit, Fred DOESN’T mean that either Apple or at&t have to approve of it, only that it works. Fred’s blog would be a great place to have an ad for that product since it is currently the first link to come up if you google “unlocked iPhone.”
I have less to offer an inventor than Fred but I want more. I want an iPhone whose voice capabilities can be used at WiFi hotspots so that I can make VoIP calls rather than cellular ones, particularly when roaming out of the country. I would only buy such a phone if it is capable of signing on to any hotspot that I can sign onto with a PC.
If you’re the first to show me a phone like that and it works (you gotta let me test it but I’ll either give it back or buy it), I’ll blog about your product AND give you a free ad on Fractals of Change for thirty days. Not as good as being on Fred’s blog but you never can tell what interesting links we might get.
It will be difficult to win this challenge because Apple is rumored to have carefully locked certain capabilities to prevent VoIP from working at the behest of at&t, who would rather charge for wireless calls and sign you up for years thank you very much. But, if you’re a great hacker,…. There would be a great irony in this given Steve Job’s early relationship with the notorious Captain Crunch who invented the blue box which used musical tones to hack into the telephone network of the day for the purpose of making free long distance calls.
Unfortunately, although Apple may have revolutionized the form factor of handsets with the iPhone, it chose not to challenge the locked business model of wireless carriers. Perhaps by responding to Fred’s challenge or mine, you can make the iPhone the revolutionary tool it could be.