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Posts with tag unlocking

What will you do with your old iPhone?

So like a gadzillion people have asked me: "What do I do with my old iPhone now that I'm upgrading to a spiffy new 3G unit?" I thought about doing a top ten list. I thought about clever and amusing ways to use an old iPhone. But seriously, it just comes down to this. So read my lips.

Jailbreak it. Unlock it. Give it away or sell it. The end.

Get yourself a copy of iLiberty+ or ZiPhone or whatever tool you like. Once unlocked, you can sell it for a badzillion dollars on eBay, because contrary to what I originally thought, AT&T isn't going to let you walk away with a new 3G iPhone without signing over your first born, your personal bank account and possibly your soul. So the demand for 1st gens is going to go through the roof (as will the demand for posthumous mobile air conditioning units once AT&T is through with you). Over at Google, those $250 refurb iPhones from a few weeks back are going for $500 and up. Ebay has relative bargains at $350 and up.

If you have a child, a spouse, a dog or any other loved one, you can now give them the phone with a T-Mobile or AT&T SIM and they're good to go. If any of these loved ones are foreigners ("votre chien", for example, in the case of those north of the border but within the Quebecois borders), they should be able to use a non-US SIM in the unlocked unit (i.e. "Le Rogers Fido").

As we've posted before, AT&T says it will reset your contract to 2 years once you get the new iPhone, so your old one will be completely free, clear, and contract-free. No one (except, perhaps, your dog) will sanction you for unlocking it.

ZiPhone 3.0 released

ZiPhone, the free jailbreaking and unlocking tool for iPhone, has hit version 3.0. According to the ZiPhone blog, new features include:
  • NVRAM fix is no longer needed
  • Greyed WiFi solution
  • YouTube fix is no longer needed
  • Apps installer is included
  • Customized plug-ins
You can download the updated installer from the ZiPhone blog.

[via iPhone Hacks]

Thanks Leif!

iPhone Dev Team announces free unlock

For all of you who have been holding off on paying iPhone SIM Free $60-$100, good news. The iPhone Dev Team has announced AnySIM 1.1. According to the announcement by netkas, the software has been tested with both 1.0.2 and 1.1.1. AnySIM offers a free unlocking solution for iPhone users and apparently, if I'm reading this correctly, does NOT fix baseband problems from earlier releases. This is meant for "virgin" locked phones only. Download your copy here. Be aware that as AnySIM works, it switches off your WiFi until you reboot. Also, this is NOT intended for phones that will be updated. Do not unlock 1.0.2 and then update to 1.1.1. Updating a locked 1.0.2 to 1.1.1 will relock your iPhone. The team is testing a 1.1.1 restore on 1.1.1 unlocks right now. Remember guys: although the software here has been tested to make sure it avoids corruption--it does not hurt NVRAM/seczone--it is very new and has not had a lot of field testing yet. Caveat hackteur.

The team is now working on finishing the iPhone revirginizer that will safely revert your iPhone to its shipped (locked) state. You like? Buy the guys a beer or something. Nazdrovyeh!

Update: The team says if you get a "failed to unlock" on 1.0.2, you're still probably unlocked. Reboot and give it a try.

Update 2: Mirror here.

Update 3: Instructions have shown up here.

Is an iPhone unlocking app on the way?

According to Computerworld in Singapore, a UK-based company claims to be closing in on an unlocking application for the iPhone, allowing the device to be used on other GSM mobile phone networks such as T-Mobile in the US and many others around the world (alternatively, you can go the contract-free, Wi-Fi iPod route that Erica found). The UK company is Uniquephones and their founder, John McLaughlin, says they have "engineers working around the clock in several countries" to break the system Apple has in place for locking down the iPhone to AT&T.

As far as McLaughlin's team knows, there is at least a two step process to activating an iPhone. Engineers have already been able to circumvent the SIM activation process so another carrier's card can be used, but their attempts to meddle with the iPhone's firmware so it can work on another carrier have failed so far. Surprisingly, DVD John, the Norweigan hacker responsible for cracking the CSS encryption scheme on DVDs, claims to have ventured beyond this barrier, only to return with the bad news that the device can't be used as a phone when activating with anything but an AT&T account.

The Computerworld article cites another side of this coin, however: even if McLaughlin's team is successful, their site and anyone else's could easily be susceptible to legal action from Apple, forcing a take-down of the code and forever binding the iPhone to the carriers Apple choses to partner with. Only time will tell, but I honestly wouldn't blame Apple or AT&T for stopping iPhone unlocking apps in their tracks. While I'm just as unhappy about carrier lock-in as the next guy who would prefer to roam the wireless seas in any direction he choses, Apple and AT&T have still put a tremendous amount of collaborative effort into developing the iPhone (let's not forget the alterations AT&T had to make to their network and software for features like Visual Voicemail), and outside of all the new contract signups, we really aren't sure how else AT&T is getting compensated from this deal. The iPhone is still Apple's product, and they chose to bind it to AT&T's network (for now), and as much as I hate to say it, these companies get to decide how their products are used.

Nevertheless, the race to unlock the iPhone should be an interesting one. Should McLaughlin's team succeed and are able to package an unlocking app for sale, he plans to charge $50 for each slice of the iPhone unlocking pie.

[via MacDailyNews]

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