It could be that AT&T just doesn't know how many iPhones they have. It's not as if the AT&T/Cingular/XYZ company agglomeration is really good at capturing information that's not relevant to their billing cycle. As a non-Cingular cell phone customer I can tell you my carrier ALWAYS has errors in their data, ALWAYS has errors on their bill, and ALWAYS has incorrect information about my account up on their website. If I asked my carrier which phones I owned, how long I owned them and when they were activated, they'd get it maybe 60% correct.

AT&T is THE fat dumb bovine company of the world. Unless it has something to do with their bill to you, or legislation and tariffs, they don't know and don't care.

Maybe this is what is best for the iPhone and Apple, but that does not mean that Apple can do it.

For good or for ill they signed a long term contract with AT&T. Whether this was because of Jobs insistence on visual voice mail (which required AT&T to change part of their system) or his desire for revenue sharing (or possibly a combination of both) doesn't really matter. Breaking contracts has consequences. I highly doubt that Apple wants to go toe to toe against AT&T's lawyers in a long drawn out court battle. Job's RDF probably doesn't work to well on appellate courts.

We may all believe that the iPhone should be unlocked, Apple may think it was a mistake to get in bed with AT&T, but for the next few years, outside of a large payoff for a new contract, there really isn't anything Apple can do about it.

While T-mobile deserves some credit for somehow having a crummier network than AT&T, my understanding was that the iphone loses its key features off-network.

Just sayin'

I agree that Apple should quickly Unlock the iPhones by putting 2 prices ; with or without contract ;

I am in Ukraine (by the time Apple will have similar arrangements to AT T with local provider , the iPhone will be long obsolete) and love Apple computers , Safari etc... Why can't I buy the iPhone unlocked like I buy their Macbook Pro (unlocked) for instance ? Why the same frustration happens and heard whether you are in Hungary or Uzbekistan ? Why Apple should show that first T H E (big) U S , then the "small" others, ...? ....It's often not even question of Budget,people want this phone , so they buy it ; I wanted this phone and I bought 2 ...unlocked...How else ?

Five years is an eternity in the tech world. In 2002, the iPod had barely been released. In the subsequent five years it morphed into a dozen or more variations and took over the world. Anyone who truly thinks that the AT&T only deal is going to last until 2012 is not paying attention to the world.

Almost surely Apple will find an out, even if it is paying AT&T off.

In Jurassic Park, Jeff Goldblum did not "grandly declare" his line about the inevitability of life bursting through imposed boundaries. He whispered it, in a fascinated yet scared tone of voice.

See? If you'd stuck to the facts, it would have fit your story much better.

I've been wondering if that is the reason why Apple has such a lower future prediction of earnings...

I'd buy one today if they were unlocked. I loved traveling with my unlocked Treo. Saved a mint on long distance charges calling from the UK.

Why pay more than you have to when the NSA is going to listen in anyway, ehh...

http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2008/01/25/apple-more-on-the-missing-iphones/

..."Sacconaghi yesterday went to work puzzling it out. He noted that there were 3.7 million iPhones sold through December 31, leaving 1.7 million not registered through AT&T. He estimated 350,000 have been sold in Europe, dropping the unregistered total to around 1.35 million. He estimated that about 20% of the rest had been “unlocked” and were being used on other networks, with the rest in inventory with AT&T and the company’s European distribution partners. He calculated there were somewhere between 150-200 phones in inventory for every non-Apple retailer. And he concluded that the data suggests iPhone sales are not as robust as Apple’s sales data implies, and that March sales could disappoint as the market soaks up the current inventory.

OK. Now Munster’s take. He likewise uses 350,000 as the number sold in Europe. But he assumes that 25% of U.S. phones sold have been unlocked. That would be 838,000 phones. That leaves 2.5125 million phones eligible for activation. Back out the 2 million we know are activated, and you get inventory of 512,500 phones. Munster contends normal channel inventory for the phone is five weeks. If that is true here, it would imply sales of about 100,000 phones a week. Which would suggest annual sales of 5.3 million. Apple has said it will sell 10 million iPhones in 2008. Ergo, Munster’s logic would imply no excess inventory."...

Some of the missing iPhones are in India with me and my friends. One of us bought 8 iPhone from US to India and we unlocked those and are still using those delicious iPhones.

of how many iPhones are actually unlocked, and my personal survey of a very small sample says 20%, all still using AT&T, the point has clearly been and is still being missed by many, including Jobs,

The 2 people I know who unlocked their iPhones (told you it was a very small sample) did it just because they don't like Apple telling them what they can or can't do with their $400 phone. The price point is too high for some people to just accept what they are given. Same thing that killed DivX as a physical media years ago. If there really are several hundred thousand unlocked iPhones out there in the US, the answer is to lower the price until unlocking your phone becomes nothing more than an interesting excercise, not worth the trouble. If they get it right they'll make more money in the long term.