Here’s a question I’d love to see Apple answer more than why it found the “courage” to remove that damn headphone jack. Why can’t it sell me and others a phone without demanding us to choose a carrier, especially when that’s no longer necessary?

Apple annoyingly did this again today, as it has in the past. I couldn’t order my phone, as a result. Others I saw on Twitter were clearly having the same problem. Two tweets I posted about the issue clearly resonated:

Carrier not needed

It’s not, as some might imagine, because Apple somehow has to know the carrier in order to give us the correct phone. ALL of the iPhones that Apple sells in the United States are cross-network compatible. I’ll come back to that in a moment. Just trust me for now that it’s [mostly] so.

It’s also not because Apple was selling the iPhone 7 with carrier subsidies. Sure, you could find those. But Apple was mainly trying to get you to buy directly through it using its iPhone Upgrade Program, which bypasses carriers.

So why on earth were we being forced to make carrier choices to buy a phone — and unable to buy one, if those carriers had issues? What’s the carrier got to do with it?

How carriers screw-up the order process

Let’s go through the preorder process. Pick your phone!

That’s easy. And that’s the last easy thing you do. Because next, you have to pick a carrier:

See, it’s all because Apple just wants to work with your carrier to make sure your phone is all activated correctly and you keep your number and plan. Even though for many, none of that would change. At this point, I think we know how to pop-out a SIM card from our own phone and put it in a new one.

Buy without a carrier? Wait a few months…

At the very least, THIS should be an option on day one for any iPhone that’s sold:

See the “Buy without a carrier” option? If you want a new iPhone 6s, you have this choice. And Apple clearly knows the people doing this are all grown up and able to swap SIMs without help. But for the iPhone 7? No such luck.

Why? Why on earth is there any reason the iPhone 7 can’t have this now, rather than forcing all those customers Apple claims to care so much about to wait a few months before it releases a SIM-free version that pretty much is the same thing it’s already selling now with all this carrier garbage.

The only reason I can think of is that Apple still feels it needs to for some reason to make the carriers happy. No, no — hold off on that SIM-free version (and yeah, Samsung, you do the same).

Maybe taken as a whole, it’s worth frustrating and annoying Apple customers this way because of the long term gain. Or would be customers, if they could get the phone they wanted when they wanted. Maybe in the long run, Apple knows they can play this game and still sell all the phones they want.

All I know is that as a long-time iPhone user, it just feels like a big f-you to me from Apple — and it makes me think f-you Apple right back.

Back to carriers screwing up things

Let’s return to the order process. In this example, I’ll choose AT&T, since you have to choose something:

Most of the options — and this is true for the other carriers — are for UNLOCKED phones. So again, why did I need to pick a carrier at all? Or more important, why couldn’t you just sell me an unlocked phone without making a carrier choice?

Any of those options leads to a new screen where you are required to enter a wireless number, your billing ZIP code and part of your social security number to verify you have an account with the carrier already:

Apple wants all this so they can contact your carrier “so you don’t have to.” Sounds nice, but that leads to these problems:

During a busy pre-order, the carrier might be unable to keep up, and then your order is stalled

The carrier might have a problem understanding you have an account, and then your order is stalled.

Both happened with me. With AT&T, they couldn’t process things, so Apple gave me a reservation code and said I’d hear more via email. Woot!

That didn’t happen in the first hour, so I went back to the Apple Store app. Suddenly, there were new options asking me to try verifying again in the app. When I did that, my ship date had slipped from September to October. Despite my reservation code, Apple actually saved nothing for me — all because it couldn’t talk to AT&T.

I also have a Verizon account (I do a lot of live event coverage, so it helps to have two different carriers). My purchase attempt with that carrier got nowhere. I kept getting told it couldn’t verify my account. Eventually, I realized that because I’m prepaid on Verizon, it was treating me as if I didn’t have a line at all.

(PRO tip direct from Verizon, from when I’ve dealt with this and Samsung phones. In such cases, you have to buy a new phone on a new line with Verizon, then cancel that line when the phone arrives and swap SIMs. Then call Verizon about 10 more times when they fail to cancel that new line even though you’ve done exactly what they’ve told you).

As for the other reason Apple says you need to do all this, to keep your number and rate plan — HEY! I’m buying an unlocked phone with no subsidy. Why would any of that change?

Complaints over carrier madness

Lest you think I’m just whining about how carrier involvement screwed things up for me for weird reasons, know that I’m not alone. Just check Twitter:

No technical excuse for carrier involvement

Remember when I said carrier didn’t matter. The first part of that is addressed when you consider these phones are unlocked. You can move them to any carrier.

But will they really work on any carrier, when AT&T and T-Mobile don’t support CDMA, as Verizon and Sprint do. Here’s the Apple rundown on that:

If you buy a Sprint or Verizon iPhone, you’re good anywhere in the US with any carrier.

If you buy an AT&T or T-Mobile iPhone, you have problems if you’re in a place that ONLY has CDMA, to my understanding. And that’s really unlikely. That means there’s no 3G. No 4G LTE. There aren’t a lot of places like that for most people. For those where this is a problem, they already know they need to go with a specific carrier.

So yes, these phones will work. I have an older T-Mobile iPhone that I’ve often used with Verizon and never noticed a problem.

Apple, show some more of that “courage”

In short, Apple is selling unlocked, cross-network capable phones. Phones that by their very nature do NOT require many people to involve their carriers in the purchase process. And yet, Apple insisted today on yet again shoving carriers into that process.

If Apple can get rid of the headphone jack because it’s old tech full of air that’s not very valuable, then how about jettisoning carriers from the iPhone purchase process for those who don’t need them. They’re old tech full of air that’s not adding value, either.