June 29, 2007 11:35 AM

iPhone Frenzy

Working Assets took a controversial stance the other day: we asked our community of activists to pressure Steve Jobs to unlock the iPhone, the cool new Apple telephone that has just been released. Unfortunately, Apple struck a deal to commit iPhoners to AT&T, a company that has been virulently anti-net neutrality and turned over customer records to the NSA, via a deal that stands against competition and innovation in the marketplace.

Now, we are a phone company as well. But it's not our hunger for business that drove this call to action. As a business, we try to behave ethically (we did not comply with the NSA) -- and as activists, we talk about issues we believe in.

We got some blowback over this. But we think the conversation is important. And we're happy to see we're not the only one.

David Alpert, the founder of IPac, has announced that he won't be buying an iPhone because of their AT&T policy and has written persuasively on the importance of this issue:

Despite the great innovation it represents in mobile technology, the iPhone is also a step backward for some of the worst practices of the mobile industry.

The phone will only work on AT&T's network, unlike other GSM phones, making it impossible for a customer to lawfully purchase it and then connect it to another GSM network in the U.S. (T-Mobile) or any GSM system overseas. This is the same AT&T that recently announced its intention to built technology to spy on its customers on behalf of the RIAA and MPAA...

And worst of all, the iPhone doesn't allow third party applications at all - even worse than Verizon's practice, the previous worst, of requiring all application writers to go through an arduous approval process and pay high costs to Verizon. The iPhone does allow AJAX Web apps to run on the phone's Safari browser, which ameliorates much of the problem, but that has many limits, most of which aren't yet known. Will the apps be able to access the camera or microphone? (Probably not.) Will they be able to take advantage of the innovative input gestures like zooming by moving fingers closer or farther? Access the address book? Save files locally? Apple could have built an API for developers, but they've never been particularly interested in fostering a development community around their technology.

Many defenders of wireless industry practices like early termination fees and locking argue that if consumers really cared about these things, they wouldn't purchase phones and plans with them. Well, I'm not purchasing an iPhone. And I hope you won't either.