Can I Buy an iPhone w/o Contract?

Factual Questions
1

I will be flying back to Saudi Arabia in a week or so. A friend wants me to get him a fancy top-of-the-line iPhone for him. They are cheaper in the US.

Can I buy one at the Apple store (or elsewhere) and leave without having to sign a contract for phone service?

2

I believe you can at Best Buy. They’re quite a bit more expensive that way, but they’re available.

3

This is correct. It’ll cost you like $600 for the top of the line one w/o a contract.

4

thank you.

5

Make sure that it’s unlocked as well.

6

That’ll be the tricky part. I don’t think unlocked ones are publicly available in the USA. I considered getting one in Belgium, but got a US version and just unlocked it myself. That’s not without its quirks, though.

7

Unlocked ones are not available in the US. Don’t call AT&T about it, they’ll refer you to Apple, which will refer you right back to AT&T. NEITHER will unlock your phone for you. That’s your job, and you can find out how with just a coupe of minutes of poking around on Google.

8

And if you don’t want a phone plan at all (here or elsewhere), you can get an iPod Touch with basically the same functionality except for the phone part.

9

And, as far as I know, unlocking the phones is legal in the US, especially if you’re paying the full, unsubsidized price for one. Neither Apple nor AT&T are under any obligation to assist you in doing it though.

Probably easier to stop off in Europe or wherever and get an officially-unlocked one. Are the full-price iPhones that much more expensive in Europe?

10

Ha! I got an iPod Touch in July as a replacement for my Palm OS Sony Clié. It wasn’t long before I started longing for the iPhone. So at the end of October, I decommissioned the iPod Touch and got my iPhone. I don’t use it as a phone, though. It offers the following above the iPod Touch: camera w/ video, GPS, cell tower trianulation, compass, and of course 3G data when WIFI isn’t available. What irks me is that the (subsidized) price is the same as I paid for the iPod Touch originally.

Completely legal and exempt from DMCA should that enter into it. You’re looking for blackra1n. Google it.

Yeah, I’m going to Belgium in a couple of weeks, where all the iPhones are unlocked. They’re about a thousand bucks last time I looked up exchange rates. So I went with the US version.