Limiting (i.e. Tracking) iPhone purchases
What would you do if you knew you were loosing $4.5million?
wireless.itworld.com – Cash isn’t king: Apple limits iPhone purchases
That’s what Apple are allegedly loosing in unlocked iPhones. I don’t see Apple getting much sympathy for this but it makes for an interesting predicament. On the one hand they have obligations to their marketing partners – AT & T are seeing a quarter of a million accounts less than they are expecting to see and cannot be happy about that.
On the other hand, the Apple brand is all but built on consumer perception and sentiment. A large section of their most loyal following are self-professed ‘geeks’ who’d rather die than think of themselves as mainstream conformists. (I’ve always found this pnenomena around Apple rather ironic, given that the Apple design philosophy basically boils down to following the commonest denominator, be it in style 
)
It’s all about that old notion of being part of ‘the’ revolution, but most of these revolutionaries are armchair revolutionaries – they are paying top dollar to be on the same side as the real revolutionaries. They want to be friends with the guys who actually hack stuff. And this market segment, crammed as it is with technophiles, opinionmakers and product evangelists are the guys that Apple is squaring up to headbutt by only selling iPhones by credit or debit card.
The article doesn’t say what, if any steps will be taken against obvious breakers of the iPhone software and or the terms and conditions, beyond limiting sales to two units per individual.
My guess is not much. Would be interesting if they did though.
From a philosophical perspective the itworld article’s title says more than the entire article; No, cash isn’t king any more, at least not in our marketplace, here accountability is everything.
+1 for tracking.
André SC
