I would be shocked if Visual Voicemail is not available though all carriers who have a deal. Despite Apple's marketing spiel, it's not rocket science. Open a data connection to the appropriate server and ask what messages there are, then use that information through the standard voice mail phone number to retrieve the actual voicemail. Viola! Having Apple maintain voice mail servers would be a logistical and technological nightmare, and it would also be pointless. Right now all Apple has to say to the carriers is this is how we discover the server to query, here is the format of the query and this is the response we expect.

Ideas like this and the magnetic power connectors are good but seem obvious in hindsight. Either way they're not very high on the technology totem pole, even if they are a boon for users.

That certainly might change, given that, for instance, in Australia they typically sell unlocked phones as a part of a plan and you don't get the phone until you have signed your life away for two years. So activation might be separate from contractual obligations. Also they might start selling locked phones, which would be a mistake, but its certainly possible.

Also I might add that if Visual Voicemail is not patented it may well start arriving on other phones, but it may be of limited use since not all phones are sold with a data plan, as the iPhone almost certainly will be.

They can include the SIM cards for all carriers in the network who offer the phone, or offer it entirely SIM free and make the phone completely unlocked and rely on people to get their own SIM cards from the carrier (or transfer their own accounts). Technologically, this shouldn't be that difficult, either. Phone "addicts" like me would love to be able to just buy the phone from the store, put our existing SIM cards in, and be done with it. If it takes a visit to the carrier website or a link on iTunes to switch to the iPhone data plan, that's easy enough, too.

<< But I can&#8217;t imagine that Apple, which places such a premium on delivering a clear, consistent message to its customers, can be terribly pleased by this &#8220;Yes! No! Maybe! Ask again later!&#8221; approach to public relations>>

No, Apple would never, for example, announce that Airport Extreme could host Time Machine backups to an attached USB drive, then "oops! not", then "well OK, sort of" in a later rev, but "unsupported".

Crystal-clear, unambiguous messages, that's Apple.

AT&T won the lottery, they brought absolutely zero to the iPhone table other than available cell towers. Their service blows, they are a far less innovative company than Apple and their contracts are Faustian. That Apple selected them for the iPhone is merely a cause of picking the lesser of all evils. One day we'll all be using wifi and wimax to make all our calls over the net and AT&T wireless will wither away to its long overdue death. And that's spoken as a longtime customer...

Sounds like PR by the Magic 8 Ball!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_8-Ball

Perhaps a wider, global perspective? I think Apple has to give up it's policy to team up with providers. We've been waiting for a year now and non of the providers in the Netherlands want to make a deal, neither in most other European Countries, let alone in asia or the middle east...
Wifi acces is never unlocked (we have other rules in that matter) so who cares...

Apple should just sell the darned thing unlocked and focus on building better phones:
– longer battery life
– better Mail/Ical/ToDoList integration
– spam filter?
– 3G networking (is already comming)
– GPS chip and solution