Main Area and Open Discussion > Living Room

I'm so old, I remember when people paid Microsoft to use their software

<< < (5/5)

superboyac:
Man, wouldn't it be wonderful for a company to just start making cell phones that are blank slates, not tied to any carrier?
--- End quote ---

Are all cell phone brands are tied to carrier in united states ? or you can buy sim and phone separately ?
-mahesh2k (February 14, 2011, 04:26 PM)
--- End quote ---
it's not universal, but predominant.  There are certain phones that you can buy "unlocked/jailbroken", but they are usually not offered that way in brick and mortar stores or through official vendors.  So you have to go out of your way to get it (ebay, craigslist, etc.).  If you do get one, yes, you can just swap in your sims card.  but this is not what the "man" wants you doing.

JavaJones:
Not only that but very, very few carriers in the US actually allow you to just use their service by swapping in a SIM card. Only AT&T and T-Mobile (and maybe MetroPCS) support them I believe. Further, there are two different major technologies used by cell companies in the US for voice calls (not to mention myriad data technologies, particularly with all the different 4G systems currently being rolled out). So ultimately, even if you can buy an unlocked phone, you're likely to only be able to use it one or two carriers anyway. The US cell phone situation is really messed up compared to Europe, from what I understand.

- Oshyan

mahesh2k:
Here in india, only apple and blackberry are locked to carrier (with post-paid plan)and from last year even they're open to sale. I think this change was because of too many Chinese mobiles in market. Due to more options people hardly pay attention to any handsets which are locked. 

zridling:
Tim Anderson says that Nokia's Elop fears mobile duopoly. He tries to make sense of it: "This is not good for Nokia, though it might be 'the least bad of all the poor choices facing Nokia'." He also talks about how Nokia killed off the Qt devs within the company after saying they were the future. Oy.
http://www.itwriting.com/blog/3887-nokias-elop-fears-mobile-duopoly-but-it-is-already-here.html

But then I read Loic Le Meur on the "new nightmare of developers and brands" that all these platform ecosystems are creating, and I can only imagine how devs might be tearing their eyes out of their sockets:
http://www.loiclemeur.com/english/2011/02/the-new-nightmare-of-developers-and-brands.html

You need to be on all the above platforms stores, of course. But wait, there is more. You need to submit and manage your app to the mobile carrier app stores, they all have one. That's only a start, wait until the manufacturers themselves, the Samsung, Dell, HP and Sony have theirs, HP has one with the Palm acquisition... Even Amazon has an store for applications. Bonus startup idea of the day: create a service to help register and manage my app in all those stores in all languages, I can be your first customer.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[*] Previous page