iPhone Unlocked

Anticipation of iPhone 2.0 at Apple WWDC tomorrow has a lot crazy rumors floating around.

One of the more interesting rumors is that Apple is going to allow carriers to subsidize the iPhone the same way they subsidize all sorts of other phones, in exchange for signing up for a 2 year contract. If they do, I expect iPhone sales to go crazy, but what’s even more interesting is the possibility that we’ll be able to buy an unsubsidized phone without it being locked to a carrier.

The impact on US users would be pretty minimal right now because T-mobile is the only other national carrier with an iPhone compatible GSM network. What’s more, T-mobile has done very little to upgrade their network to 3G, which supports faster download speeds and is one of the major features people expect from the next iPhone. Still, it would be nice to have a choice.

It’s a more significant issue for US users who travel internationally, since it will let them use carriers in the countries they visit directly, rather than having to go through AT&T who marks-up the same service. It’s also a big deal for people who live outside the US. One carrier already offers the iPhone unlocked, but the price is crazy, 2x the price with a contract, and something close to $1000 US, if I remember right.

We’ll have to see, because it’s very likely that the next iPhone is going to be harder to hack and unlock than the last version.