Only two per customer. And no cash
ENTERTAINMENT gear maker Apple has ordered that no punter may buy more than two iPhones and none can use cash.
According to
Associated Press, the move is widely seen as an attempt to control the rising sales of iPhones to modders who install chips to so that they do not have to use AT&T's network.
In what must be one of the first attempts by a technology company to stop its customers actually buying a product, Apple confirmed that the unannounced policy has started last week.
Apple spinnerette Natalie Kerris said that Apple had previously limited the numbers of iPhones which could be bought to five and there was no cash restriction.
However she did not mention that the move was to stopping the lucrative modding operations.
Instead she claimed that the iPhone was so popular that limiting iPhone sales to two per punter helped Apple ensure that there were enough iPhones for people.
The credit or debit card for payment demand was to discourage "unauthorised resellers", she claimed.
However sales unmodded iPhones on eBay and the like have been few and far between, so it seems strange that Apple can be bothered curbing them.
Apple issued
a software upgrade to brick more than 250,000 phones that were running mod chips. This sparked two court cases and a lot of user resentment.
More
here.
The INQuirer