France liberates Jesus Phone from Orange

Vive les Frogs!

I hope they ultimately succeed. Although I do rather like some of Apple's hardware (don't own more than an iPod though), I do believe they would be even more evil than Microsoft if they were in a comparable position of power.

Not pleased?

" Apple did not immediately respond to a request for their response to the ruling - but we assume they're not pleased. ® "

Nar me old hackster. Apple will be thrilled because everyone will be selling their crappy phone. Notice O2 is losing exclusivity in the UK. Having the iPhone sold exclusively by o2 lent it a chicness for early-adopters, but only those who were happy creating a new 02 account. For others, exclusivity meant denying punters the chance to buy.

They should have had a "select" list of sellers, instead of exclusivity. They would have sold more, while highlighting any fakes coming in from China. Yeah baby!

Its not like its bread...

I am amazed at the "freedom shouters" who consider this restrictive business. So what if they sell their product in a certain way, its theirs, they invented it and built it, they can do what they want with it. If someone pays more wedge to Apple to sell it exclusively then they deserve the cash. If you don't like it buy another phone on another network (I did)

How would you like it if someone (Nu Lab) forced you to work for your local school, for less money, because they thought your exclusive contract with your employer was unfair and people who could only afford to pay less deserved your talents.

Like people in my town who complained to Tesco about them selling petrol too expensive as they were the only garage (for a whopping 4 or 5 miles). Why diddnt they just shop elsewhere for 1 month. There is something called "Consumer Sovereignty" which is basically vote with your cash.

Yawn...

Anyone else getting fed up of Iphone this iphone that stories? come on reg - move along - nothing to see here.....

Maybe there's more to it....

As Mr. Bouygues (CEO of Bouygues Telecom) is a close personal friend of Sarky.

And once you've got the ear of the head of state, then the opportunities are endless.

Yesterday Sarky banned advertising on the public television channels in favor of the commercial channels, like TF1, which is owned by.....Mr. Bouygues.

So maybe there is a hidden agenda there, allegedly of course.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.....

Let's see how easy it is to get an iPhone in France after this ruling......

@Yawn....

Ever thought of checking the headling and deciding whether it's interesting to you? It's an IT related article and they are few and fare between on the Reg nowadays.

fecking nuts

It's absolutely fucking nuts how the iPhone's exclusivity agreements are anticompetitive and the suchlike, while they're perfectly acceptable for other handsets.

Hypocrites.

@Maybe there's more to it....

Ah, the French are little more subtle than the Italians then: the head of state is merely a friend of the main TV channel owner rather than being the same person.

@Hate2Register

"while highlighting any fakes coming in from China"

What fakes are these, pray tell, that anyone would be fooled by? To put iPhone-like functionality into an iPhone-shaped package and make it look/run like an iPhone will be way too much trouble for counterfeiters - the point is they make something very cheap that looks and acts like something very expensive - e.g. a fake Rolex watch which will have very cheap innards and a sheap-ish case made to look like a Rolex.

Of course you might mean "real iPhones smuggled out of the factory" in which case they are not so much fakes as, let's say, "grey import". And there are one or two insurmountable problems that a purchaser would face before they could use said phone...

All iPhones have to be activated through iTunes and as each has a unique serial number it is more than feasible that iTunes would refuse to activate a phone that hadn't been shipped from the factory, gone through the inventory system or flagged as stolen.

Then we have the carrier lock-down although we now have the prospect that the phone will be able to be unlocked from its carrier soon.

And when you've got over all that you STILL need a package that gives you enough data to make all those features usable. From my usage I'd say 100Mb per month is a good starting point

oh happy days...

"Apple did not immediately respond to a request for their response to the ruling - but we assume they're not pleased."

anything that makes apple not happy in turn makes me happy...

but never forget the true winners in this are the legal teams on both sides of the fence who are about to make a lot of money arguing the point for the next 5 years...

mines the one with the nokia and the netbook in the pockets...

Revenge?

If Stevie wants his revenge, he can always make sure that all iPhones destined for France ship with the "Crazy Frog"* ringtone forced in firmware.

Forcing the power on password to "Vichy" would drive the point home nicely as well.

*Not only sodding annoying but sends a useful message too.

French phones unlocked

As far as I was aware, all phones in france are unlocked, the apple thingy is a phone so it has to be unlocked. simple oui.

Can't get away from the iPhone...

Christ if you ring up SFR you currently get "Mr Bluesky" blasted at you and them harping on about the iPhone.

Stop the madness, please!