I know there are (paid) methods to unlock the 4S, but I'm wondering why Apple locks phones to specific carriers. When we buy the phone, we already sign a 2-3 year contract, which means the carrier is guaranteed to get our money every month. Isn't this enough? Why are our phones also locked to the carrier? Why does Apple or the carrier care if we use another carrier or pay-as-you-go card? For example, if I'm going out of country for a few months, and my phone is locked to a Canadian carrier, then what am I supposed to do (assuming that I don't know any methods to unlock, since Apple certainly assumes consumers don't)? I'm supposed to pay ridiculously huge amounts of roaming charges by routing all my international calls to my Canadian carrier? Is that the only reason why they lock your phone, so that if you're out of the country you are still stuck with your home country's carrier, thereby paying tons of roaming fees? I really hope a more "official" unlock for the 4S comes out soon since we're travelling, the "Gevey" unlock at $59.99 seems pretty fishy.
In the UK when only O2 had the iPhone for a few years they didn't unlock it, I guess the reasoning is something along the lines of not only wanting you to pay your standard line rental, but also to go over it and incur charges. It's weird because (I think) now all the UK networks unlock your iPhone for you free of charge , I still don't understand why American networks won't do it.
