Walmart's New Health Food Push: Is It Too Hard to Swallow?
Bonds Are a 'Safe' Investment: A Big Lie Gets Even Bigger
About 1 million people may have illegally hacked into their Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhones so that they no longer are required to use AT&T Inc.'s (NYSE: T) network, according to an estimate by a well-regarded Wall Street analyst.The estimate by Sanford Bernstein's Toni Sacconaghi is astounding considering that there were 3.75 million iPhones sold last year, according to a summary of his report on Bloomberg News. For those of you doing the math, that equals 27% of all of the so-called Jesus phones. Another analyst, Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray, pegs the figure at 838,000.
But as Bloomberg notes, Sacconaghi believes the situation is serious since, "for every 1 million unlocked iPhones, Apple loses $300 million to $400 million in future revenue and profit, and may also find it more difficult to sign deals with new carriers."
So far, Apple has been unable to thwart the hackers and the problem is only going to get worse. Gadget freaks, like the rest of the world, are becoming increasingly worried about the economy. The iPhone that looked like the best thing since sliced bread last year may have become a drain on their wallets this year. The end result is that they will look for the cheapest way to operate their gizmo.
This is an issue Apple cannot afford to ignore.
Goldman Earnings Sink After Buffett Dividend
Johnson & Johnson's Income Falls 23%
Burberry Shares Leap on Sales Update
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-28-2008 @ 7:42PM
mimi said...
big deal,I do not see how it will affect apple only at&t.
1-29-2008 @ 6:58AM
Marlon said...
Apple gets a kickback from AT&T for every iPhone activated with a data plan.
No AT&T = No residual money for Apple
1-28-2008 @ 7:42PM
appleseed said...
It's not illegal to hack your iPhone, whether you jailbreak it to allow 3rd party applications to work, or unlock it so that you can run it on a network other then AT&T in the US. The only thing the owner is violating is their Apple warrantee.
In the US, Apple should have adopted the model they were forced to use in France and offer a supported, albeit more expense, version of the phone that was unlocked. That would save them the wasted expense of trying to stop this practice - no DRM Jobs knows this is a losing battle - while also picking up some revenue from people who are willing to pony up the extra cash for the unlocked version and this whole thing would be a non-story.
1-28-2008 @ 11:57PM
lc44lc said...
How is unlocking an iPhone illegal? Please point us towards the law you are referring to.
Thanks.
1-29-2008 @ 7:00AM
Gumby said...
Steve Jobs think like a mobile home park operator. Once you haul in your trailer, you are supposed to be stuck there paying space rent until you die of old age...
1-29-2008 @ 3:55AM
Marc Rogoff said...
As soon as native apps are produced with the SDK release that make it worth people switching back to AT&T there will be a lot of people who move back. The iphone OS cannot be updated on unlocked phones and eventually the benefits of a locked phone will outway the negatives IMHO.
1-29-2008 @ 10:13AM
george scandalis said...
The premise of your whole blog is lost on me as you can point to no evidence supporting your statements.
Can you imagine a million people in the US hacking anything?
You couldn't find a million people in the US knowledgeable enough to set the time on their VCR's.
I personally find it more plausable that these phones have been bought with the sole intent on exporting tham to Asia, East Asia and Europe.
Granted, these phones produce no profit for Apple going forward but they did give Apple a profit when they were initially sold and they serve to virally spread the religion to people that might never give OS X or Macintoshes a second look leading to a halo effect as it were.
1-29-2008 @ 1:23PM
Gumby said...
Why dont yo go ask Champion Ent to move overseas and buiild trailers for the poor families and tell the daddies to quit smoking too. They can afford trailers instead of buiilding their own shanties themselves. Sell something good to them isntead of Cokes, Big Macs, and cigarettes!!! Even gold!!
2-11-2008 @ 8:28AM
DAT said...
Has it occurred to the "analysts" that a certain number of people buy the iPhone in advance of their current cell phone contract expiration. This would cause a percentage of rolling delay between purchase and AT&T sign up.