Digital Brainwaves

I doubt I’m the first to toss this idea out, but I had a thought the other day about the supposed revenue sharing being done between Apple and its exclusive iPhone carriers.

Almost every comment and blog that I’d read about it assumed it was just a plan to make more profit from the iPhone. And to be fair, the rumored amounts (as much as $9/month from AT&T over the life of the contract, for example) do make them a fair penny.

Only when a new software update for the iPhone in January that includes several new features did it all make sense, though. The iPhone got the software update and its new features free of charge, but the addition of previously unavailable iPhone apps to the iPod touch, along with the new updates to match iPhone’s January update, cost $19.95. When asked about it, Apple had said that they account for iPhone revenues on a subscription basis, but cannot, for legal and accounting purposes, provide new functionality on the iPod touch without charging for it. Steve Jobs mentioned the same thing with regards to the upcoming software version 2.0 (featuring native application support) due to be released in June.

I hadn’t thought about it before, but what if the iPhone revenue sharing with the carriers isn’t just a profit stream, but a means-to-an-end for providing free software updates to iPhone users? Most cellular phone users get any software updates from the carrier for free, so what if this is just Apple’s way to make the books work legally in order to do the same thing?