25th August 2007

An Unlocked Apple iPhone: Worth $25M?

George Hotz - unlocked apple iphoneYes that’s Million as in $25 Million smackeroos.

Okay to understand it helps to read this item from the Globe and Mail online column, but basically the story goes like this:

Young hotshot tech-genius unlocks an Apple iPhone by performing a 2-hour, fairly complex and highly technical hardware and software modification, and is now using it on T-Mobile, instead of AT&T. Cool.

AND he was smart enough to buy TWO iPhones, unlock them both, and sell the second one on eBay. Even cooler.

But – according to the story – the bidding was (as of posting date) at somewhere north of $25 million dollars for the unlocked Apple iPhone.

Now to be fair, I’m preeety sure that some of the bids that are in excess of, oh lets say a few thousand dollars, simply MUST be fake bids, but come on people! Let’s do the math here. You can cancel your T-Mobile contract, pay their exhorbitant cancellation fee, buy a new iPhone, and sign up for AT&T’s Top of the Line contract and all for WAAAYY less than $25 million dollars???? To top it off, this guy is very kindly and generously giving away his instructions on how to do it yourself for FREE people – did you get that? FREE – you could buy several phones and try unlocking your own for WAAAYY less than $25 million dollars!

Okay so even taking into account the novelty factor that spurs collectors to get into a crazed bidding frenzy to “be the first to own an unlocked Apple iPhone” – is it really worth $25 million dollars?

What am I missing here?

Kitten
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