Unlocked iPhones from Apple
Apple released carrier-unlocked GSM iPhones in their U.S. store today. Unlocked iPhones were previously available in other countries, but in the U.S., the only GSM iPhone you could get was locked to AT&T.
But why now? Why bother releasing this now when the next iPhone is supposedly only a few months away? The phone continues to not support T-Mobile’s 3G bands, so it’s not like this is a T-Mobile “soft” launch. It is possible that it’s an attempt to clear out stock, but I can’t imagine there’s that much pent up demand in the U.S. for an unlocked iPhone to warrant this now.