It has legal merit, so it will fail

Timothy Smith, a California resident, is suing Apple for locking iPhone to AT&T. He's claiming that this violates California's antitrust statues. Frankly, it appears to do more than that as well. These agreements among companies to limit free trade and to leverage monopolies is in no one's interests but the companies themselves. We have anti-trust and anti-monopoly legislation in this country for a reason. It's about time someone realized that we need to enforce these laws.

Man sues Apple over iPhone's AT&T lock
The Machinist - Salon

Apple has lately been on the receiving end of a number of ridiculous iPhone lawsuits -- litigious whiners are upset at the device's battery life and that Apple cut the iPhone's price -- but now comes a legal claim with some moral weight to it. A California resident is suing Apple for locking the iPhone to AT&T -- a lock that Apple has been prepared to maintain at the cost of breaking people's phones.

Timothy Smith and his attorney say that by preventing customers from choosing a cell carrier than AT&T, Apple is violating California's antitrust statues. Smith argues that because unlocking your cellphone is completely legal, Apple's technical and contract restrictions have "artificially inflated" the iPhone's price.

Smith's attorney is seeking class-action status for the lawsuit. The suit asks to bar Apple from selling locked phones and to force the company to reinstate the warranties of people who have unlocked their phone's from AT&T.

We'll see if Smith's suit goes anywhere, but you'd be wise not to hold your breath on this one. This is a huge deal, bugger than Apple and the iPhone alone. If he prevails, Smith's claim would ripple through the cell industry, which generates gobs of green from the kind of anticompetitive locks that Apple and AT&T maintain with the iPhone. Wish for the best, but don't expect it.