No iPhone bite
Core Group, the SA distributor of Apple products, has warned consumers not to buy grey-market imports of the company’s iPhone cellular handset, saying there is a risk the product will be rendered nonfunctional the moment they connect it to the Internet.
The warning comes amid reports that Apple still has no SA launch date for the popular smartphone which has captured the imagination of consumers in the US and Europe. “For now, there is no iPhone for SA,” says Core Group executive director Rutger-Jan van Spaandonk
The handset is available only in the US, the UK and Germany, with France to follow later this month.
Van Spaandonk says consumers need to stay away from grey-market imports, which, he says, have been hacked so that they work on any cellphone network. He says the hacked handsets not only have their warranties voided but will also be “bricked” the moment they are connected to Apple’s iTunes software. “We cannot support them,” he says.
Consumer demand for the device has led to people importing the phones, hacking them and selling them for as much as four times the US retail price.
Apple, which disinvested from SA several years ago, has been criticised in the past for ignoring emerging markets. The company’s iTunes Music Store — an online digital download site — is still not available to SA consumers. “The market has to be big enough to sustain separate infrastructure,” Van Spaandonk says.
Loading ...