[mikeash]

Let's not discount what Apple pulled off. Before the iPhone, carriers ruled handsets with an iron fist, dictating what features they would have and what apps would be available.

Apple completely smashed that. Carriers now, for the most part, accept that they don't get to decide what your phone does, only how you use your connection with them. The carriers used to do things like disable Bluetooth and charge you extra to turn it back on, or force all apps to go through their own internal approval process and purchasing.

I'm not terribly happy with the status quo Apple has left us with. Rather than place control with us where it belongs, they've just moved control to Apple. Apple is a far better overlord to have than the carriers, but it's still not great. However, we should still recognize that Apple pulled off a massive change that nobody really thought could be done.

[anxrn]

Keep in mind when the first iPhone released, there was no App Store. And no plan for one, supposedly [1]. Apple had as much control over your phone as the other carriers did. And much more than it does now.

My comment was more about the leverage it had over the carriers and completely squandered. IIRC, AT&T was paying Apple $10 or so per user per month. A carrier paying a handset manufacturer a fee seems like a lot of leverage. At this point, Apple had the potential to turn the industry away from fleecing customers. Instead, in 2013, we're lauding an upstart-ish company for contract-free smartphones. Great progress, but its taken far far too long.

[1] http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jul/10/business/la-fi-tn-if...

[thirdsun]

To be fair this seems to be a US-exclusive experience. Things like these were unheard of in Europe. I feel that some european carriers just rather recently learned a thing or two from the US-carrier playbook, like charging for tethering, approving/delaying software updates, etc.

Still, I'm glad that the invention carrier-approved and net-locked phones never/rarely made it across the ocean.