This continuing cat and mouse game reminds me of radar detectors. I recall when radar detectors first came out, and something akin to an arms race broke out between authorities and lead-footed civilians to stay one step ahead of each other. I'm fairly certain that's a race that won't end until modern transportation takes some strange turn. So it is with the iPhone unlock strategies, and according to iPhone Dev Team vet Nate True the 1.1.3 firmware update will once again break unlocks and third-party applications. The full post offers some fairly convincing reasons to believe that they've got the real scoop. I'm buying it.

Want to put a happy spin on this? Just be thankful that Apple doesn't allow the iPhone-hacking geniuses much idle time, lest some of them find other ways of showing their talent.

[via Slashdot]

Following up on the iPhone 1.1.1 jailbreak, iPhone SIMfree--they are the commercial unlock folks--have announced a 1.1.1 upgrade and a 1.1.1 unlock solution. Moreover, they believe their unlock solution will restore and repair iBricks: "This now means that SimFree v1.6 release, is now capable of completely restoring/repairing software unlocked "bricked" iPhone". TUAW has not had the opportunity to try this out ourselves, so for now we're just passing along the link to the iPSF site. Let us know in the comments if you were able to unbrick and/or update to 1.1.1.

iPhoneSIMFree is available from various vendors around the world and costs about US$60-$100.

Update: TUAW Reader Matthew Fliegle writes: I am on AT&T, and I installed the IPSF 2.6 using WiNstaller (on 1.0.2 with 4.01bb). It took about five minutes with no error messages. Then I restarted the phone and a error popped up saying invalid sim. I connected it to iTunes and clicked update. That took another 5 to 10 minutes, and then it made me reactivate it with AT&T. The only thing bad is that it made me renew my contract for another 2 years, but I called AT&T and they said I shouldn't have had to renew it and they were putting it under review.

This morning, my iPhone's IMEI was perfectly fine. My iPhone has never been unlocked. I was able to use my AT&T Pick Your Plan SIM. And as recently as a week or so ago, I wrote about using iASign, which picked up on and used my normal, correct IMEI settings.

Today, as I liveblogged, I finally applied the 1.1.1 upgrade. This afternoon, when I finally got around to trying to reactivate my phone, which was displaying the "wrong SIM" message, I found that the iPhone update had apparently changed my IMEI to the dreaded 004999010640000. I cannot figure out any other way that the IMEI had changed. When I last used iASign, it showed the correct IMEI. Today, not.

Basic facts:

• My iPhone has never been unlocked.
• When I used iASign the last time, my IMEI was correct and I was able to switch between my two AT&T SIM cards.
• I did pitch in very peripherally with the unlock effort. However, I used a version of the program that had every baseband access commented out to keep my iPhone pristine.
• I have two AT&T accounts: one is an iPhone-specific PickYourPlan. The other is a general PayAsYouGo. I have switched between these two SIMs on a regular basis.
• iASign will not work and will not let me switch SIMs unless it detects a proper IMEI. It no longer does so.

Update: On Dinopio's advice, I removed my SIM--and the iPhone reports the proper IMEI. He suspects there is something corrupt on my baseband.