Jailbroken iPhones are a hot commodity these days. In Hollywood, the going price for a used, jailbroken iPhone
3G is $500. In New York, an iPhone 3G can yield upwards of
$600 bucks. Salt Lake City jailbroken iPhone 3G's go
for $550 and up.
Used. There are even iPhone jailbreaking services that specialize in jailbreaking and unlocking Apple devices.
A brand new, warrantied iPhone 3GS will cost $199 for 16GB, $299 32GB with an AT&T contract. Without the contract, the 16GB will cost $599 and the 32GB will cost you $699 retail. So why would someone buy a used 3G for the price of a brand new 3GS?
For one: people are locked into contracts. Can you think of another industry that charges you money for not doing business with them? Verizon's early termination fee is $175. The other cell companies charge around the same, some more. The iPhone AT&T contract is one of the most expensive individual cell phone plans out there, it is almost impossible to own an activated iPhone for less than a hundred bucks a month. AT&T/Cingular has no shortage of disgruntled, unsatisfied customers who refuse to do business with them, no matter how hard Jobs and company try, and the members of the largest cell phone network in America, Verizon, can't use the iPhone.
App Store restrictions and
must have jailbreak apps like
pdaNET give iPhone owners further incentive to jailbreak their devices. The 3GS's don't offer much more to iPhone users; aside from double memory capacity, video, and a few other perks, there isn't much of a difference between the 3G and 3GS. One notable difference is the ease in which the older model iPhones can be jailbroken and unlocked.
As Apple patches hackable holes and locks its consumers into predetermined, expensive wireless contracts, the demand for jailbroken iPhones increase.
AT&T subsidies allow people to buy iPhones at well below retail price and make a hefty profit reselling. Apple has
found a way to prevent jailbreaking - for the time being - on 3GS devices, making the iPhone 3G and jailbreakable 3GS models even more valuable on the
Black Apple Market. See how much your device is worth - jailbroken - on Craigslist and then go and read our jailbreak
how-to. You could make a few extra bucks.
*Correction Verizon service cannot be used with a simple jailbreak/unlock*
