AT&T just got lasered in their exhaust pipe.

250k out of 1,4 million phones? It doesn't sound like a lot. I was expecting something like 400k or 1/2 million... Seems there iss less people willing to mess around with their phones than I thought.

Roughly 18 % of users is quite a lot. Keep in mind that a lot of iPhone buyers will be "users", not "geeks", so might hardly have heard about the whole unlocking thing.

well, if Apple and ATT would make a way to allow me to use my iPhone on my corporate account, then I wouldn't have used iNdependence to make it work. I know tons of people that would have gotten them for corporate accounts. I'm still an ATT customer.

I have two iphones, one is my wifes with an Att prepaid account. That one is unlocked because I wanted to try it with my T-Mobile work sim. Then i bought the second iphone, and unlocked it. I purchased an unlock from SimFree so that i could upgrade my phone to 1.1.1. My wife's is stuck at 1.0.2. It is ironic that our paying account is the one that can't upgrade, but whatever. I don't buy songs off itunes and my wife does, so apple is losing money and I am saving money by not letting her upgrade.

Wow that's a hefty amount. What's Apple's next step I wonder?

I'd love to hear the amount of "bricked" phones. What percentage of these "unlocked" phones were stupid enough to apply the 1.1.1 upgrade? I also wonder how many "GoPhone" users only thought their phone was bricked, and needed Apple to walk them through reactivating with their original SIM. Actually, nevermind. I don't really want to know.

You can revirginize them now I believe, (not 100% sure). I just unlocked one last night with the free meathod for a friend in Italy. Took over an hour to do :/

Reading the posts in the unlocking forums it seems a lot of the unlockers were people (like me) who live in foreign countries where apple hasn't released them yet.

The apple fanboys abroad don't have a choice really.

These numbers fail to state whether or not there are 1.4 million iPhones in users hands, or 1.4 million iPhones out of Apple's hands. There is a big differences. A lot of companies do the latter. That means "sold" phones could be considered a) phones that were sold from Apple retail stores, and b) phones that Apple authorized retailers purchased from Apple, but have yet to sell to customers.

@aquaosx:
well, considering ATT and Apple are the only places you can currently buy an iPhone, I have to imagine that they have the number of units sold. It's not like the mom and pops can buy these and sell them.

@jrog:
True true. I forgot that.

@JROG Not true. A lot of people are reselling iPhones. eBay has 1449 open iPhone auctions this very minute.

[cell-phones.search.ebay.com]

AquaOSX is right.

Keep in mind the high number of 'geeks' that have purchased the iPhone. It is a safe bet that at least 400K of the 1.4m phones sold were to geeks, and is it a surprise that 250K of them unlocked their phones? The percentage is going to fall as the phone goes more mainstream, of course. That said, the question is whether AT&T will push Apple to take more drastic steps to keep the phone locked? Or, another question.. Will Apple do it without any pressure from AT&T since Apple loses a couple hundred bucks on each phone that is not signed up with the death star?

@djfred:
Yes, phones for sale on eBay that were once purchased at an AT&T store or an Apple store.

I spotted at least 10 shops in just 2 markets in New Delhi, India where an iPhone (8GB) was available for about Rs. 27,500 ($687). Unlocked.

Mine is unlocked because I refuse to be forced to pay AT&T any more money just because I happen to fucking love the iPhone.

Not Apple said "with the intent to unlock" not "were unlocked." 9to5 Mac doesn't provide evidence of their speculation.

There must be loads of people who activated the IPhone in the AT&T service but eventually unlocked their device as soon as that was feasible. That curve did likely rapid grew when the software unlock was released.

Are these people counted in the 250k figure? I do not think so.

On the flip side, it would have been interesting to see some poll data on what % of people in a sample of to-be cellphone buyers decides NOT to buy an iPhone, because it's locked.

Good. Phones shouldn't be 'locked' in the first place. Consumers should be able to purchase phones independently from service. How 'crazy' would it be if we had to buy televisions from cable providers, and then were forced into two-year contracts with that cable provider. Goods and Services should be sold separately.

I get the feeling Apple wants to sell unlocked iPhones, but none of the carriers will let them on the networks if they don't make with the exclusive locking deal. The fact that they are putting out information like this is to show the carriers that there actually are a lot of people out there who realized their product is gimped.

Personally, I think they have a pretty well planned schedule for all this, like when they dropped the price after some weeks and gained sale rates and happy customers.
So suddenly, one day we wake up with unlocked iPhones in the stores.. But I don't think Apple wants to sell them unlocked and still sells them in locked condition; I rather think it's all part of a big plan.

@thejrah:
True, but I don't see how that changes aquqosx's point that there's a big difference between phones that are unlocked by end users who want to use another carrier and phones that are unlocked because they've yet to be sold to end users from resellers. Whether the resellers are authorized Apple Distributers or just reselling phones they purchased from Apple and ATT at a premium is immaterial. The point is that they're out there.

I understand the desire for unlocked phones, and I hope they all are. But here is my story. I switched from Verizon to T-Mobile because of a feature they offered. I did not like the phone and bought a Blackberry, which turned out to be a terrible phone. I finally got sick enough of using it to buy an iPhone, which of course meant switching to AT&T. Well, it turns out this carrier has the best coverage strength for my area, so I lucked out. Unlocking would not have any benefits for me.