It seems like Apple is doing itself quite a disservice only serving AT&T (or whatever partner they've chosen in your country). RIM is able to sell to a lot more potential buyers than Apple is and Apple is losing out on customers who chose a RIM device based on carrier availability.
I'm sure AT&T and others are doing a lot to make the exclusivity worthwhile, but at some point wouldn't selling 2-3x more phones make better sense? If Apple were smart (and I'm not saying they aren't), I'd think they would want to make sure that the iPhone/iPod touch became the platform for mobile computing. They're already getting there as evidenced by the huge number of App Store applications, but they seem to be treading dangerously as other companies won't play by Apple's one-carrier handicap.
Apple doesn't want to end up where it did on the desktop - an also-ran whose "our way is the only way" saw their marketshare crumble. Granted, in this case, I'd say that Apple would be a major player also-ran, but there's no reason why they can't be #1 and build an almost Microsoft-like lead here if they sold more openly.
I'm sure AT&T and others are doing a lot to make the exclusivity worthwhile, but at some point wouldn't selling 2-3x more phones make better sense? If Apple were smart (and I'm not saying they aren't), I'd think they would want to make sure that the iPhone/iPod touch became the platform for mobile computing. They're already getting there as evidenced by the huge number of App Store applications, but they seem to be treading dangerously as other companies won't play by Apple's one-carrier handicap.
Apple doesn't want to end up where it did on the desktop - an also-ran whose "our way is the only way" saw their marketshare crumble. Granted, in this case, I'd say that Apple would be a major player also-ran, but there's no reason why they can't be #1 and build an almost Microsoft-like lead here if they sold more openly.