Quote:
Originally Posted by oilyfan
You can argue that Apple was confident in its ability to make successful sales through one vendor by going exclusive with AT&T precisely because it was confident in its ability to protect its IP. If IP was not protected then I cannot see why AT&T itself would have entered into any kind of deal. Putting aside whether you believe the patents are valid or not, making an argument that offering a cheaper alternative (on any carrier) to the iPhone did not affect sales is verging on the absurd, in my opinion.
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Or Apple didn't know how successful the iPhone would be so they took a big risk and let AT&T talk to them into having exclusive rights. AT&T also took a big risk because they probably paid Apple pretty good money for those rights.
In the end it was a win-win for both, but at the time nobody knew that.
To break it down even further, not all those carriers with the various Samsung phones that have been brought into question offered nationwide service. Nor were they all capable of even carrying the iPhone...IF they wanted too.
T-Mobile, Sprint and others use different spectrum from the 850/1900 that AT&T and Rogers used when they signed the exclusive iPhone deals. So they weren't even CAPABLE of carrying the iPhone, even if they wanted too.