One in six iPhones not activated on AT&T

Whoa! This is the first iPhone post all week! Imagine that. We almost went five whole days without mentioning something iPhone related. Oh, it’ll happen some day, we promise. Anyway, the news today is that roughly 250,000 out of the 1.4 million iPhones sold aren’t connected to the AT&T network. Yeah, we knew that there would be some degree of defection from the “exclusive” AT&T deal, but one in six is rather significant. The news comes right from Apple COO Tim Cook. We’re not sure if this means the figure is totally accurate, or if they’re spinning it for some reason or other. Then again, the article from which we found this information isn’t exactly the most credible. Why do we say this?

Since Apple launched the iPhone in June, hackers have been developing work-arounds that “unlock” the phone and allow users to contact carriers such as Verizon Wireless orT-Mobile to set up accounts.

Seriously? How can you write a piece on the iPhone and not know that it cannot connect to Verizon’s network? We mean, that’s pretty much common knowledge, especially at this point, four months after the iPhone launch.

The number of unlocked iPhones jumped after Apple cut the price on the device last month by $200, Cook said. He did not say if or how Apple would respond to the high rate of unlocked devices.

Uh, Apple already did something in response. It, uh bricked the damn things. Thankfully, there’s been a fix, and unlocked iPhones should be operational again. However, watch out. We’re sure we’ll go through the same hoopla when firmware update 1.1.2 comes out. Conclusion: We figured there were a number of iPhones connected to other networks, but we didn’t think it would be this many. Also, TMCNet needs some fact-checkers. [TMCNet]]]>