Want an iPhone? Ditch the cash and get yourself a credit card. Apple has just decided that they will sell their first handset only through this payment solution, while also keeping the two devices per purchase limit, in order to prevent unlocking for second sales.

Apple just marked another oddity on the long list of unusual marketing techniques that they resorted to since the iPhone's release. This surely makes them feel like beginners in the mobile phone world, as they have done just about everything that ended up in making them look like anything but a pro. Moreover, the device now feels like being sold on a ration and not according to the market's demands.

The iPhone's producer estimated that about a quarter of a million from the 1,4 million sold handsets have been bought with the sole intention of being unlocked and resold later on. At a first though, there should be no problem what the buyers look to make with the cellular once they have bought it. It didn't seem to trouble Apple all that much until it managed to score some pretty big deals with European carriers.

Apple should get a big percentage from all revenues that operators should receive from their subscribers' use of the iPhone. This makes it critical to keep all the users within the network and stop the unlocking trend that has taken a strong leap over the past period. The 250,000 hacked iPhones translate into millions in lost revenue for Apple.

From the outside, it just looks like the producer keeps imposing limits on its own product. Most people might not be hindered in any way by Apple's decision of reducing the possibilities on how to purchase an iPhone. Still, it's just the thought that one more paranoid solution will stand as a difference from what everyone knows that buying a cellular should be.