T-Mobile Outsmarts Vodafone

So, Vodafone sued T-Mobile in Germany and got an injunction put in place that said T-Mobile couldn't have exclusivity on the iPhone in Germany. Not the smartest move forcing Apple to get creative when you yourself are vying for exclusivity of future Apple devices, but that's not the point.

So, instead of T-Mobile facilitating Apple making a contract with Vodafone, T-Mobile pulls a French move and just starts selling an unlocked iPhone for an extremely high pricepoint of 999 Euro. BAM! No longer exclusive, and Vodafone still gets screwed, that's how I like to see things happen.

I mean, I don't have a grudge against Vodafone, and I'm not a T-Mobile fanatic, but I like it when Party A does something that they think has Party B cornered, and then Party B comes back with an outside-of-the-box solution that totally pwns Party A, that's what I like to see, and that's what happened, I think we should get John Madden in here to call these type of shots. Anyways, if you have 999 Euro, or about $1500 sitting around and want an Apple unlocked iPhone, you can get it, and, when you budget that out, that means you'll save close to $800 over 2-years by not having to have a contract.

Also, there was a recent update to this story, where customers who bought the iPhone prior to the 19th can get their iPhones unlocked for free, but certain features will be broken from the unlock (likely YouTube, visual voicemail, and that's probably it). So, if you don't mind having your phone locked, and want to make some extra dough, and you bought your German iPhone prior to that date, go get it unlocked, and then throw it up on Ebay, I'm sure it'll fetch a pretty penny and then you can go buy a new locked iPhone and have some spare change for other cool stuff.

T-Mobile offers unlocked iPhones in Germany [U] [via macnn]