Unlocked iPhone finally comes to U.S. market
Submitted by Sam Ross on June 16, 2011 - 1:09pm
Apple, on Tuesday, announced that it is starting the sale of the unlocked version of its most popular iPhone in its Apple stores. Apple in its product description said, “The unlocked iPhone 4 requires an active micro-SIM card that you obtain from a supported GSM wireless carrier.”
The new unlocked iPhone will use a GSM network which will use a smaller version of the SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) card. The owners of the new unlocked iPhone will able to switch the network carriers to a limited extent. The premium price of the new unlocked iPhone will be $749 in the US market.
Apple Stores, during the launch of new iPhone, explained the benefits of the new ‘unlocked iPhone’ in a note. It says, “If you don’t want a multiyear service contract or if you prefer to use a local carrier when traveling abroad, the unlocked iPhone 4 is the best choice. It arrives without a micro-SIM card, so you’ll need an active micro-SIM card from any supported GSM carrier worldwide.”
The unlocked version of the iPhone will be available on AT&T network and the price of the 16GB version of the phone will be stating from 649 dollars. Other than AT&T, Verizon and Sprint also provides network access for iPhone, but both of them use CDMA networks.
In the other countries, iPhone is available in unlocked version but, in US this is the first time that an unlocked iPhone is coming in the market. The new version of the iPhone will be helpful for the people who often travels outside the country. The travelers will just have to put another SIM card of that very country in their phone in order to access the network.
The new iPhone is similar to the previous version of the phone which is sold on the AT&T network, but this time a two year contract will not be required to be signed by the customer.
