AppleInsider Staff"The risk we're evaluating this week is that Apple crosses France off," Les Echos quoted a source at Orange as saying in its Friday edition.
The French daily said the difficulties stem from a French law that would require the Apple handset to be sold both with and without contracts. This law would reportedly undermine the iPhone's exclusivity for Orange and Apple's demand of up to 30 percent of voice and data revenues.
A spokesperson for France Telecom went on record last month in claiming that the carrier had reached an agreement with Apple to distribute the iPhone in France. The two firms were widely expected to announce launch plans during the final week of September along side Apple Expo Paris.
The Paris expo came and went without any such announcement, however. Meanwhile, Apple along with partners O2 and T-mobile officially announced plans to roll out the handset next month in the U.K. and Germany, respectively.
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98 Comments
You would have thought that Apple's lawyers would have looked into this early on. Another poster from Belgium previously said that it was illegal to sell locked phones there also. Seems strange for this to rear its head so late in the day. Perhaps Apple were just getting too greedy in the end. They certainly seem to be getting more and more that way, much the same as Microsoft.
You would think this would be one of the first things their marketing people investigated.
I'd like to see the laws everywhere force the independence of the phone you buy from the carrier you use it with. Then Apple would have to choose between selling a phone that anyone can use with any carrier (at least signal-compatible carrier -- at this point, that's any GSM carrier) and not selling a phone at all.
I'm sure Apple could still make lots and lots of money selling a phones in a much more open market.
It almost doesn't make sense for that to stop the deal. I think it makes more sense to offer an unlocked unit at double the price, some would go to Apple, some would go to the official local iPhone carrier anyway.
The only problem is that it would provide a template for independent unlocking. the best thing I can think of to stop that is put in a minor change in the hardware that differentiate the two so that an independent unlocker would have to get inside and risk breaking the phone anyway.
The sort of issues Apple is experiencing in France, is going to be noticed in some other European countries too. Heck, in Belgium you aren't even allowed to sell a locked phone.
Apple is going to quickly learn that when it comes to telecoms, the west of the world plays differently than North America. I think it is time they woke up and changed their business model, with regards to the iPhone.
HAHAHAHAHA
FU APPLE
FREE THE DAMN iPHONE ALREADY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!