About 90 minutes after Steve Jobs concluded his presentation of the new 3G iPhone, AT&T held its own press conferences to announce some changes in the way that the new iPhones will be sold. iPhone users will now be required to sign a two-year contract. This contract is required whether you purchase your iPhone in one of Apple’s stores or one of AT&T’s stores, and there will be no option to order the iPhone online.
AT&T and Apple have also ended their revenue-sharing agreement. Apple stated that the vast majority of its new carrier agreements overseas had nothing to do with revenue sharing. And, the new iPhone data plans will be $10 more expensive.
Many are feeling that this is the aftereffect of the unlocking of iPhones, although Apple executives played down the number of iPhones that have actually been unlocked throughout the past year.
Apple’s carrier partners were very concerned with those numbers, however. Although Apple did deliver a product that had people flocking to switch networks and use mass amounts of data, they did fail to secure that product against people who wanted to unlock it from those designated networks and forced some carriers to see their profits going into the pockets of their rivals.
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Jun