Quite a bit of exciting iPhone news today. First Apple announced that Orange will be the exclusive French carrier for iPhones in France (French debut on Nov 29, 4 months after US release on June 29).
Proper unlocked iPhones for sale as well
But what is
all this chatter about proper unlocked iPhones also making their debut in France? Well, for those not in the know, French law dictates that phones must be sold without bundling as well. Therefore unlocked iPhones will be also on sale, albeit at a price higher than €399. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the US iPhone is still the cheapest one around, considering that
€399 = 566 USD. This doesn't mean aspiring unlockers will shun the French version as it's highly valuable to examine how an official unlocked iPhone looks like under the hood.
iPhone SDK in Feb
The second piece of news that will delight iPhone/iPod Touch owners is the
official iPhone/iPod Touch SDK that will be released in February. Before you get too excited, the
SDK may include something similar to identifiable digital signatures. How that will fare with potential developers and how it'll work is obviously still unknown, but if it works like SSL certificates, I'm guessing you won't be seeing too many small-time developers or hobbyists toying around with it.
