iPhone SIM Unlocking: Dangerous Procedure and Grey Market

In an interview published by USAToday, Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller announced that unlocking applications damage iPhone. Apple released Apple a consumer warning Monday: “Buy an unlocked iPhone at your own peril”; making it clear that Apple will not service any iPhone that will turn dead after applying an unlocking procedure or following firmware update. As the reported it previously, Apple will release a firmware update as the end of the week that will let iPhone owners access a new feature to buy music downloads via wireless Internet.
Of course one can not really know if this is purely marketing strategy, or if Apple will indeed design firmware updates to “kill on purpose” SIM unlocked iPhones. But Apple made it clear that the warranty will not applied on those hacked iPhone. Of course hackers will find ways to bypass the new protections, however the unlocked iPhone owners might not been able to make their iPhone evolving in parallel, and for sure not receive the expected customer service.
It reminds me the Mac OS X x86 project, a nice hack still running, but it never stopped or impacted Apple hardware sales. Apple never sold as many hardware units since it moved to Intel CPU, demonstrating that such hack are limited to a niche of users.
This is really a point that customers or iPhone lovers should know, while Apple can not legally prevent you to SIM unlock your iPhone, it does not have to provide service for such device if it does not work anymore as it has not been used accordingly to the license agreement.
This information comes right at the time when we hear about the increasing amount of offers available from the web in France and Europe for unlocked iPhone. Such iPhone can cost up to 1,400 Euros, while it will not provide all the feature of a true iPhone package (voice mail, unlimited web surfing, etc.). So customers should really think twice before buying such hacked iPhone as it does not come with Apple warranty anymore.