There is nothing on a Apple iPhone purchase receipt that states any warranty disclaimer of the sort mentioned in this article. It is however included with the phone packaging.

The unlocking software hacks available now pretty much rewrite the OS in a significant way.

I will not use a iPhone locked to AT&T; it's just not cost effective. Especially so when roaming. For instance every time the phone is turned on or wakes from sleep it connects (or attempts to connect) to the Edge data network. Thus incurring roaming charges irrespective of any actual direct internet usage. (Which in some cases have been quite significant un-negotiable surprises.)

Almost all Apple needs to do to break the iPhone from any other SIM is require that an AT&T Edge data connection has to be available - which it may or may not be, depending on one's plan and SIM card.

I am sure that Apple well understands the battle it has chosen to fight here, especially as it controls both the Phone OS and the software connecting link to it - iTunes. Thus it feels that it is in a very good position to control the cash flow associated with the iPhone's use by consumers.

Only time will tell if the free iPhone hacking movement will be intellectually capable of breaking a continued monopoly move by Apple.

Apple's position in the long run should only enhance sales of any unlocked phones designed to perform in a similar fashion by their competitors.

Or so we hope as consumers - that we control the actual use of our purchases and not the corporations who make them.

> unless you yourself actually choose to install a

> new operating system.

I'm unsure exactly what the big deal is.

Anyone with any concerned sense about what they need as they migrate about into differing and unknown environments should carry what is needed to solve this and other pressing existential problems of their days.

More to the point, I have for years kept a collection of cloth bandannas so that I can carry one with me at all times. That certainly beats the levis solution suggested at the end of the article.

I'm quite hoping the young writer performed this wordy exercise to earn extra credit in their life writing class, and not because a editor thought that there was much import in the subject.

Because if Salon is paying for this, I have some story lines I'd like to pursue myself ... Of course since my icebergs don't melt from hand-wringing angst I'm probably not in a real up-sale position to begin with.

In the UK, O2 will sell you an unlocked iPhone for the cost of your remaining contract with them:

£35 @ 18 months = £630

Plus the original cost of the phone, £399 ...

The question that hasn't been answered as yet - does Apple still provide warranty coverage when the phone is unlocked ?

So as far as I was concerned it was cheaper, and was actually easier to unlock a US phone than to deal with these 'legal' but possibly un-warrantied European iPhones.

Because of course as far as we know now, they all come with that great Apple non-warranty service for only a few extra dollars.

Actually, more like £269, but you get the point.

> Plus the original cost of the phone, £399 ...

I read alot of books every year, but I'm usually only into about 3 of them at anyone time - so I can in theory drag those about if I'd like most places on the globe without much effort.

And charging for web sites I can get on my iPhone in this day and age is a bit dumb.

But even worse than that are the terms of service, those Amazon kindleing book lovers promote with these words:

You may not sell, rent, lease, distribute, broadcast, sublicense or otherwise assign any rights to the Digital Content or any portion of it to any third party, and you may not remove any proprietary notices or labels on the Digital Content. In addition, you may not, and you will not encourage, assist or authorize any other person to, bypass, modify, defeat or circumvent security features that protect the Digital Content. Amazon, Kindle Terms of Service, 2007

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/11/20/amazon-kindle-the-we.html

But feel free to loan your kindle out to your friend while they read the book you were so crazy about last week.

that in order to find a decent bottle of organic wine I have to be in Europe.

True I haven't haunted the specialty wine shops here, but I have never yet found a great tasting organic wine whenever I've chosen one here. So I gave up looking at the American organic wines. I had been convinced that something was missed in the wine process here that hasn't been lost or subverted in Europe.

And with this article I can understand more about what my taste-buds told me some time ago.

While I haven't been paying any attention to this Romney fellow,

Every practicing mormon believes they are the chosen people of the latter day saints.

Which means that they are the LAST of the chosen ones before the return of Christ. And that is only made possible through Armageddon at the end of time.

Offhand, I tend to think in his case it's just not visibly driving the agenda as yet.

It's useful to consider how many powerful mormons have already been employed in the government by 'conservatives' over the last 25 years, and how that predisposed mythology has lead us along to where we find ourselves now.

Before I think you can make some statement like this:

at least Romney doesn't share the same end times prophecies that seem to be the genesis of policy