NYTimes.com - There’s Lots of Money in Those Old iPhones
With the introduction of the 3G iPhone, the original phone is officially yesterday’s gadget, which should mean that its resale value is plummeting. But it turns out that because of some unusual factors, demand for those phones is holding up surprisingly well.
Techniques for unlocking the original phones for use overseas are already well established, while those for the 3G phones are still under development. And in the United States, Apple and AT&T have made it harder to buy a 3G phone without also getting locked into an AT&T contract, making those phones harder to export or peddle on the gray market. If you don’t care about or can’t take advantage of faster network speeds, or you don’t want a contract, or you live in someplace like China, where there are still no authorized iPhone dealers, the original phone might suit you just fine.
