iPhone 4 Unlocked in Canada Only When Purchased from Apple

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The iPhone 4 has started selling today in additional markets, one of them being Canada. As some of you already know, the device is going to be available from the top 3 Canadian carriers as none of them has an exclusivity deal with Apple anymore.

Just like in the UK and France, Apple Canada is selling unlocked iPhones but we reported on that a few days ago. That only means that buying the device in an Apple store, for a full, unsubsidized price, will get you an unlocked unit, even if very expensive.

On the other hand, if you were to buy the same device with a subsidized price, then your unit will automatically lock to the carrier you activate the device with, and that’s only logical in my book. Don’t get me wrong, folks, I am not defending carrier practices here, but simply stating the obvious. Carriers will want to make sure they don’t lose you as a client and that you keep paying those monthly fees for the following three years.

It would be indeed weird to expect your subsidized iPhone 4 to remain unlocked even after activation. That would basically mean you could simply “change carriers at any time,” just like Apple’s above ad suggests. Before you tell me Apple fumbled this Canadian launch I’ll also have to tell you that the quotes above are right when you think about them. But they probably refer to unlocked, unsubsidized iPhone 4 units which will not be unlocked when activated with any of the top 3 Canadian carriers: Bell, Telus and Rogers.

Apple should definitely correct these paragraphs above and make sure consumers understand exactly how things work: unlocked unsubsidized iPhone 4 remains unlocked after activation; unlocked subsidized iPhone 4 will lock itself to the carrier you choose to get the SIM from.

So let’s hear it from Canada, folks! Do you like your iPhone 4?