Unlocking the iPhone

Last week, I walked into Mumbai's Heera Panna shopping centre to get a friend's Apple iPhone unlocked.

For those not in the know, Heera Panna -- located off the picturesque Haji Ali bay in south Mumbai -- was once famous as a haven for 'foreign' goods.

Over the years, the shops have re-invented themselves from selling mostly smuggled goods to becoming grey market experts in gadgets and gizmos.

Some shops have even acquired considerable expertise and dealerships in, for instance, high-end audio equipment. Often, they give you the option of grey and real market prices, particularly for mobile phones.

This time I was looking for a service and not a product. The first shop I asked in said he could not unlock the iPhone.

As I began walking out, a boy emerged from within and beckoned me to follow him. A few twists and turns later, he deposited me in another small shop hawking mostly, as I could see, suitcases and leather hand bags.

As I entered, a salesman was in heated negotiation with an evidently middle eastern customer. Who kept saying the suitcase seemed just right but not the price.

"Don't worry about the price sir," he kept saying. Two boys sitting behind the counter, one facing (a somewhat hidden) two expensive looking laptops caught my eye.

"Apple iPhone unlocking?" I asked. "Yes, of course," the boy said. "But I have the latest version," I said looking at the shelves packed with cloth and bags.

"Yeah, 1.1.1, right? We will do it. It will take an hour and you will have to pay Rs 3,000 he said." There was nothing more to discuss because he gave me a look that said, "You may have just got your hands on an iPhone, but we saw it before you were even  born."

I negotiated a bit and handed over. He gave me the option of installing some games (very rudimentary ones though), told me the dos and don'ts, essentially that don't sign up for a software update/upgrade or else, as Steve Jobs had threatened, the phone would become a iBrick.

"What happens then I asked ?" "Oh, nothing, we will have to downgrade versions and start it again." Actually, that was news to me. I thought a software upgrade on an unlocked iPhone would juice the thing for ever.

Last time, I wrote that Steve Jobs was being pointlessly dogmatic about tying up the iPhone with one provider, AT&T in the United States. Even software developer rights were tied up, though they were opened up last week. I still wonder why should a hardware company get so edgy about software when it could be minting millions more — but that's a shareholder issue.

My point is that technology has this amazing way of being mastered. From teenagers in New Jersey and New Delhi to a leather bag shop owner in Mumbai's Heera Panna, they've cocked a snook at Jobs, enjoying the experience and, guess what, making money as well.

The iPhone has actually challenged geeks and united them as it has created temporary livelihoods for others. Am not sure Jobs expected this response. Or maybe this is precisely what he wanted. By mastering supply side economics.