Ever since Apple iPhone was released in US back in June, there has been a great anticipation on when it is going to be released in Australia. According to unofficial sources on the Internet, we probably will not see this most desirable Apple gadget in Australia until sometime in 2008. Moreover it is likely that it will be locked to a specific network, like AT&T in US, O2 in UK and T-Mobile in German.

Should you wait? For myself I have absolutely no desire of an Apple iPhone — at least not at its price point. However there are many who simply cannot wait, and have already started importing retail packaged iPhone from US, terminated the contract with AT&T, unlocked the phone and then used them in Australia’s GSM network! It did not take long for the entire process to be streamlined into a business, and “unlocked iPhone” deals started to appear on OzBargain.

08/09/2007 — $1,400 from Quikshop

Quikshop started it first. Actually I am not sure whether they were the first one commercialise this process but I spotted them first when I searched for iPhone on Shopbot. At $1,400 it is more than double the price of buying iPhone out-right + cost to terminate the contract. I am not sure how many suckers have bought from them at this price, and Quikshop has already dropped the price to $999.

17/09/2007 — $999 from ShoppingSquare

ShoppingSquare seems to be taking big orders of importing unlocked iPhones from US. $999 seems to be quite reasonable comparing to Quikshop and furthermore then are providing 1 year limited warranty in Australia. Not sure how ShoppingSquare does it but I think it should give buyers a peace of mind just in case your new iPhone turns into iBrick during an update. They have since dropped the price to $979.

20/09/2007 — $979 from OzBazaar.com

You know it! It did not take long for importers to compete on price. OzBazaar.com is bringing the price down to $979, merely $20 cheaper than ShoppingSquare but with unknown status on warranties. They did drop the price to $898 soon afterwards. Delivery is $19.95

25/09/2007 — $899 from Nobeta Place

iPhone under $900?! Only if you are willing to buy from an online store with no “About Us” section nor any ABN information. Nobeta Place is actually a Western Australia operation but will you part your hard earned cash ($899!!) with these guys? The price war has certainly started, and they have just dropped their price to $869.

25/09/2007 — $650 from VoiTech

I guess it is about time for a company to introduce extreme pricing to eliminate competition. VoiTech is selling locked iPhone for $649.99, provided that you are a Whirlpool or OCAU member (see the relevant iPhone buying thread at WP). You can also get unlocked version for $799.99, but why bother when there is already an Open Source GUI application that can do it for you?

Since the pricing has been posted, they have subsequently increased the price of locked version to $679.99, but also introduced refurbished iPhone at $639.99 locked or $749.99 unlocked. Cheapest by a big margin. Many people have received their phone on Whirlpool’s thread so they have to be genuine.

$640 for a refurbished locked iPhone + open source unlocking application — tempted? What I can’t understand is — why pay so much for a high-end phone when data can only travel at GPRS speed? Haven’t we all moved into HSDPA for mobile broadband already? What will you feel when all your pals with their latest 3.5G phone watching YouTube online, but your iPhone can barely make VoIP calls?

“But iPhone is so cool!” Here is an alternative — CECT P168 for USD$159 delivered from DealExtreme, and most people won’t be able to tell the difference from a distance. I think that will be the path I’ll go for, until HSDPA phones dropped down to $200 mark.

Update 28/09/2007: Just noticed that many iPhone related .com.au domains have been registered and ranked well when you search for buying iPhones related terms on search engines.

One interesting website is BuyIphone.com.au which came top in SERP, and sells 8GB iPhone for $950 (with nation-wide free delivery). It’s relatively expensive, moreover it is nothing but an affiliate site to Aussie iPhones with 10% commission. I have not yet been able to locate Aussie iPhones in MoneyBackCo‘s database (probably a new merchant), but even at 10% moneyback it is still more expensive than the best offer.

Anyway. For all of you who want to make money online maybe it’s not too late to make affiliation websites that sell someone else’s imported and unlocked iPhones. However at OzBargain, we’ll just report the cheapest deal :)

Update #2: iPhone firmware update 1.1.1 came out, but don’t get your imported unlocked phone bricked. Not sure how are all these Australian importers going to handle all these bricked phones after the upgrade.