How many times have you had to buy a brand new phone because you switched carriers? How many times has this fact prevented you from switching carriers? How many times have you bought a new phone and then for whatever reason you have to switch carriers and buy another new phone?
Well, cellular carriers have locked their phones for years and this is the reason why it always seems like we are buying new phones. Cellular carriers like this and do this on purpose. It serves to keep you locked into their service. The hope is that you will be less likely to switch if you have to buy a new phone.
Traditionally users had 2 choices if they wanted to use their existing phone on another network; 1.) hack the firmware to unlock the phone whereby violating the DMCA or 2.) buy a new phone. Neither of these options is consumer friendly.
In November of 2006 an exemption was made to the current DMCA law that said users are allowed to unlock their phones legally. This is pro-consumer legislation and generally thought of as such.
Fast forward to a few months ago. iPhones are released and they are locked to AT&Ts network. The ability to use a software patch to unlock the phone is now available. As you can imagine, many users have been using this patch because they either are unhappy with AT&Ts horrible data network or they are unhappy with their service or they just want to continue using their existing GSM carrier. Whatever the case they are legally entitled to do this now under the DMCA.
That brings us to today. Apple announced that some phones with the unlock "may" become inoperable. That they were going to disable them on "purpose" but that it may happen. Whatever. This is Apple's way of circumventing the law that allows people to do just that.
So here we are again people. When you buy products and services from a company that purposely tries control what you do with YOUR legally purchased hardware/software, this is what you get. We will continue to see this sort of thing until people wizen up and learn that they only thing these people understand is money and that you must show your disapproval by NOT buying their products. If you like this sort of control and malicious attempts to break your hardware, continue....please