Questioning iPhone SIM unlocking on the App Store: is the obvious unimportant?
Funny thing, I’ve been getting some small bit of, um, commentary today for asking Steve Jobs a question we all well know the answer to: would Apple allow its developer community to disseminate SIM unlock software on the App Store? I guess the criticism is that it’s a wasted question and a lapse of journalistic judgment to even bother asking — after all, of course it won’t be allowed, jeez. Clearly.
But even knowing the answer would be a resounding no, asking whether SIM unlock software would be allowed can be construed as a statement — as well as and an opportunity for Apple to address the millions of potential customers who’d like to be able to use an iPhone on a non-prescribed carrier. Is Apple going to facilitate the process of breaking its carrier exclusivity agreements by helping distribute that software? Of course not. But it’s important to recognize that these also constitute decisions Apple has made which ultimately limit consumer choice — so why shouldn’t they have an opportunity to account for those decisions?
Not that I would ever compare this kind of trivial stuff to the gravitas of political journalists covering the goings-on of the government, but should White House reporters stop asking Bush when we’ll withdraw from Iraq just because they know the answer will be the same every time they ask? No — and they keep on asking, year after year.
Obvious question with an obvious answer? Totally. Fruitless to ask? I don’t think so.
Co-founder of 
Hey, if nobody had asked, we’d have to undergo 4 months of “Will Apple be disabling SIM unlock apps in the App Store?” musings from Apple bloggers. Now we know.
Yeah, there’s that too.
Isn’t there something going on in congress about cellphones and being locked in to a company with a certain phone ect. I’m also surprised nobody asked any questions about Bluetooth or A2DP??? Oh yeah you got steve to laugh bonus points for the question…
(And even though you say “the answer would be a resounding no”, you know that there’d still be dozens of wishful ‘Maybe anySIM will get into the App Store’ comments between now and June if it hadn’t already been flatly denied.)
right on Ryan. I thought that was your question.
-ducker
You asked the question that was the ONLY important question for all of the countries with no iPhone carriers. Readers from Australia & NZ, Canada & a bunch of other countries who read Engadget every day should be giving you props.
Forget the haters; international readers are all loving the press reminding Steve that SIM unlocking the iPhone is still item number one on our minds.
I actually thought a previous question was pretty stupid:
“Do you think RIM should be worried? What’s the message for them?”
Totally with you here. From the start I thought it was a good question (As soon as it showed up on a liveblog), and immediately knew the reasoning behind it.
When you ask Steve a stupid question, he’ll let you know (re: the reporter asking him why “Apple doesn’t take part in the Intel Inside sticker program). This wasn’t a stupid question; he may have laughed because the answer was obvious, but more likely it was a nervous laugh because he knew he’d be on the record saying “yeah, you’re stuck with us.”
Good post.
It was an excellent, timely question.
Apple could release an unlocking App on thee App store, but it’ll need to be pricy to compensate for lost revenues.
Excellent question and I’m glad it’s now on the record.
If apple gains the market share they hope to, they won’t be able to maintain the exclusivity of the iTunes distribution channel unless they allow competition, otherwise they’ll be asking Microsoft for advice on dealing with antitrust suits.
Perfectly resspectable question Ryan.
In fact it Sim unlock should be available in Apple stores @ around $200.
Unlock it professionally and your good to go.
Apple gets it carrier kickback upfront, users get a working never to be bricked phone and 1-1.5 million phones dont go missing.
Better income that the incredibly short sighted iFund.
The question had some merit. At least it’s on record now. Still, I would have preferred a question where the answer wasn’t obvious. Why not ask whether they will allow something package management software (which could be seen as competition to the official store). Or will they allow something like AFPd, which runs in the background, which seems to be forbidden by the human interface guidelines?
In keeping with the sandboxing theme, I’d be interested to know if interprocess communication is allowed between apps developed with the SDK, If apps can’t share data from the file system, can they use pipes, RPCs, or some flavor of web services to do it? (Because if they can, the concern that data only has to be stored in a single app’s package tree is somewhat irrelevant.)
And if not, then a huge piece of functionality is going to be missing for suites of apps that would need to cooperate on the client side.
Not a good question. Not good at all. One shot and you blew it. Shame.
Glad you had the balls to ask this question. As you see, many people think it was wasted. But more the fool we would be to start making assumptions. Its like the VOIP question. Most people would assume it wouldn’t be allowed as it would cut into the revenue stream of AT&T and the other providers. But hey, it was asked, and we got an interesting answer we didn’t expect.
Keep pushing that envelope Ryan!
[...] applications to threaten any of their revenue streams from the iPhone. Likewise, SIM unlocking is forbidden. But what about other, less black and white applications? John Gruber asks if Amazon would be able [...]
I have to agree with Diego. Of all the things you could ask Steve Jobs when you had one shot – you chose the one with the most obvious answer.
Its your choice, I just think with such limited QnA time with Jobs i’d expect people to really make the most of it for the benefit of readers of the respective blogs and newspapers. Jobs’ response to your question was a “no shit” moment for me and thus somewhat a wasted question, regardless of the rationale.
But as I said, its entirely your choice.
Great question! Here in the Netherlands we’re still waiting for an iPhone launch. The only option to get an iPhone is to import one and break it.
If Apple is losing any money, it’s their own fault.
Good for you — that’s the flipside of the question I tried to discuss with you on the phone a few weeks ago. Your question implies an assumption that software markets should be open. You’re questioning a brute force lock, they control distribution and certainly won’t let any software they don’t like to be distributed. The other kind of lock, one in the customers’ and press’ mind, is that once Apple enters a market, all products even remotely near it are dead unless they come from another giant company. This question isn’t ever looked at any deeper than that. Maybe the developer has something truly different from Apple. Isn’t it the journalist’s job to explain that? Do your questions have a point? Some of them do like the one you asked yesterday. It’s good for journalists to make a point now and then.
BTW, I asked a similar question at an Apple press conference in 1998, and have never been invited to another. No regrets. As you found out yesterday the press that covers Apple are a bunch of ninnies, they are owned by the company — if they ever criticize the company in a meaningful non-superficial way, no more invites.
We need developers to create the software they are motivated to create, and it makes no sense to give Apple editorial control over the developers, any more than it makes sense to give them editorial control of Engadget.
It was a wasted opportunity. If you wanted to ask something more general (as in, what exactly will be the criteria for approval by Apple), you should have asked that question.
It was a good question, because it brought up unresolved conflicts between the consumers and apple. And it got the most emotional response of the day.
I saw it more as a STATEMENT than a question, and a statement that had to be made. Good job.
Funny, when I saw that come across the “wire”, I thought, “that sounds like a question Ryan would ask”, but I had no idea. :0)
You think maybe Steve wasn’t expecting that question of yours?
[...] これと同じ理屈でSIMロック外しも禁止である（←訳注：イベント最後の質疑応答で「App StoreではSIMロック外しのアプリも認めるのか？」と尋ね、ジョブズの答えが「NO」だった件について、質問したエンガジェット編集長が所感を書いてるエントリです）。 それなら、これ以外のもっとブラックでなく白（合法的）なアプリはどうなるんだろう？ John Gruberは、「アマゾンは（iTunesに対抗する）Amazon MP3ストアから楽曲が購入できるiPhoneアプリ（OS X Touchアプリ）も作れるのか？」と疑問を投げかけている。これはすごく良い質問で、今のところこれに対する答えはないのだ。 [...]
I think it was a question that needed to be asked and glad you did.
Alas! Hindsight is 20/20. If you get to ask that question again, I so want to hear, “And if someone makes an iPhone unlocking program called ‘Blue Box,’ do they at least get points for irony?”
[...] (coming soon), lack of ability to access data over EDGE (wifi is allowed), disallowed VOIP, limitations on certain applications, no Windows development environment (personally doesn’t affect me, but A LOT of users are [...]
I’m not sure if it was a “wasted question,” but it was not a very good question. We knew what the answer would be before you even asked it.
I think an example of a good question was “How likely will there be a VoIP?” Now that was a good question partly because the answer it elicited was a bit unexpected and it delivered new information to us.
No regrets as you found out yesterday the press that covers apple are a bunch of ninnies they are owned by the company..